# gore

/ˈɡɔɹ/ (US) · /ɡˈɔː/ (UK)

Source: https://englishreference.com/word/gore
Updated: 2026-08-15

## Senses

### 1. blood and violence

noun · CEFR B2

thick blood from a wound, or very violent scenes in movies and books.

For teachers: blood that has been shed, especially when thickened or clotted; by extension, the depiction of graphic violence in media.

- The horror movie was full of gore and made many people feel sick.
- The veteran reporter had witnessed enough real-world gore to be completely unfazed by the special effects in the latest action blockbuster.

### 2. a piece of fabric

noun · CEFR C2 · Technical

a triangular piece of cloth used to make a skirt or sail wider.

For teachers: a triangular or wedge-shaped piece of fabric inserted into a garment or sail to provide shape or volume.

- The dressmaker added a gore to the skirt to give it more flare.
- By carefully aligning the grain of each gore, the tailor ensured the heavy woollen cloak draped elegantly without bunching at the waist.

### 3. land or geometry

noun · CEFR C2 · Technical

a triangular piece of land or a section of a map that covers a round object like a globe.

For teachers: a triangular tract of land, or one of the curved segments of a map designed to be pasted onto a sphere to form a globe.

- The map was printed in several gores so it could be glued onto a ball.
- The surveyor identified a small gore of land between the two estates that had remained unincorporated due to an eighteenth-century mapping error.

## Examples

- The horror movie was full of blood and gore.
- The director decided to focus on psychological tension rather than showing excessive gore on screen.
- The novel's unflinching descriptions of battlefield gore served as a stark critique of the romanticised notions of war prevalent in the nineteenth century.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.