bore [OE] There are three words spelt bore in English. The sense ‘to make a hole’ is Old English. The sense ‘a steep-fronted wave caused by the meeting of two tides’ may be from Old Norse bára ‘wave’. It was used in the general sense ‘billow, wave’ in Middle English, but only in the modern sense since the early 17th century. The bore that is boringly tedious has been with us since the mid 18th century, but the origin of the word is unknown.