mar
/mɑɹ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.19 in modern English
5
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A blemish.
noun
Alternative form of mere (“a body of standing water”).
name
Abbreviation of March.
noun
A title of respect in Syriac, given to all saints and also used before the Christian names of bishops.
name
Alternative letter-case form of Mar (“March”).
Example Sentences
- "[…] and putteth ether many a good mā by ignorance in ieopardy of his life, or marreth good medicines to the great diſhoneſtie both of the Phiſician and of Goddes worthy creatures, the herbes and medecines:"
- "Prospero: […]huſh, and be mute / Or elſe our ſpell is mar'd."
- "Ire, envy, and despair / Marred all his borrowed visage, and betrayed / Him counterfeit."
- "Mother, tho' wiſe your ſelf, my Counſel weigh; / 'Tis much unſafe my Sire to disobey; / Not only you provoke him to your Coſt, / But Mirth is marr'd, and the good Chear is loſt."
- "[…] I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it."
- "Sin defiles the soul; it mars its beauty, impairs its health and vigor. It perverts its powers, and deranges all its dignified energies and attributes."
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English merren, from Old English mierran (“to mar, disturb, confuse; scatter, squander, waste; upset, hinder, obstruct; err”), from Proto-Germanic *marzijaną (“to disturb, hinder”), from Proto-Indo-European *mers- (“to annoy, disturb, neglect, forget, ignore”). Cognate with Scots mer, mar (“to obstruct, impede, spoil, ruin”), Dutch marren (“to push along, delay, hinder”), dialectal German merren (“to entangle”), Icelandic merja (“to bruise, crush”), Gothic 𐌼𐌰𐍂𐌶𐌾𐌰𐌽 (marzjan, “to annoy, bother, disturb, offend”), Lithuanian miršti (“to forget, lose, become oblivious, die”), Armenian մոռանալ (moṙanal, “to forget, fail”), Sanskrit मृष् (mṛṣ, “forget, neglect”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /mɑɹ/
- British English: /mɑː(ɹ)/