shore 2 n also shoar. Cp OED ~ sb3 1 'prop or strut'; EDD sb2 'a support.'
1 A stout post set vertically or slanted in the ground to support a 'fishing-stage' or wharf.
[1663] 1963 YONGE 56 The stages are begun on the edge of the shore, and built out into the sea, a floor of round timber, supported with posts, and shores of great timber. [1771] 1895 PROWSE 272 [Regulations against] removing raffters, rinds, floorings, shoars, stakes... [1771] 1792 CARTWRIGHT i, 132 We loaded the shallop with posts and shores. 1819 ANSPACH 436 The broad flakes consist of a set of beams, supported by posts and shores, or stout pieces of timber standing perpendicularly under the beams. 1866 WILSON 205 These stage-posts are of different lengths, but usually from ten to fifteen feet, and are braced with shorter posts or shores. 1895 J A Folklore viii, 31 The inner [es of a wharf], which are called shores... T 14/6-64 The main front of the wharf are strouters. The inside part of what they put on are generally shores. 1975 BUTLER 61 For the shores there'd be strouters. They'd be shorter, probably eight feet long, twelve feet long shores.
2 An upright post which supports house above ground level.
[1771] 1975 O'NEILL 56 In 1711 Capt Jos Crowe mentions Capt Arthur Holdsworth's house as 'standing upon stakes and shores.' 1853 Ecclesiologist xiv, 157 Sills are laid down consisting of chopped sticks, about eight inches at the small end, which, when chopped square, brings them about eight inches cube throughout; they are levelled, and kept there by shores driven well down in the ground. 1966 PHILBROOK 34 The houses [of Nippers Harbour] are on a foundation of wooden poles or 'shores' resting on bedrock, and occasionally must be replaced. T 411/4-67 Older people built their houses so close to the ground that this back sill was never very easy to replace. An' indeed when the shores rotted off it [was] almost impossible to get them put back new. C 69-6 When I was diggin' holes for the shores (lars) fer me new house, in the one place only two feet down, I felt hollow ground an' wouldn't dig no more. 1975 BUTLER 79 [To build a house] four straight logs would be laid in place as level as possible on wood shores or posts in the ground.
