oar

Meanings

Noun

• A type of lever used to propel a boat, having a flat blade at one end and a handle at the other, and pivoted in a rowlock atop the gunwale, whereby a rower seated in the boat and pulling the handle can pass the blade through the water by repeated strokes against the water's resistance, thus moving the boat.
• An oarsman; a rower.
• An oar-like swimming organ of various invertebrates.

Verb

• To row; to travel with, or as if with, oars.

Origin

• From Old English ār, from Proto-Germanic *airō ("oar"). Cognate with Old Norse ár.