shore

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
shore1

▶noun

• 1 the land along the edge of a sea, lake, etc.

  ■ Law the land between ordinary high- and low-water marks.

• 2 (also shores) literary a country or other geographic area bounded by a coast: distant shores.

– phrases
in shore on the water near land or nearer to land.
on shore ashore; on land.

– derivatives
shoreless adjective,
shoreward adjective & adverb,
shorewards adverb.

– origin ME: from MDu., Mid. Low Ger. schōre; perh. rel. to shear.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
shore2

▶noun a prop or beam set obliquely against something weak or unstable as a support. ▶verb (often shore something up) support or hold up with shores.

– derivatives
shoring noun.

– origin ME: from MDu., Mid. Low Ger. schore ‘prop’, of unknown origin.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
shore3

archaic past of shear.