lor

• loh, lorh, lo

From Cantonese 囉 / 啰 (lo¹) and Hokkien 囉 / 啰 (--lo͘).

• (Singapore, Malaysia) IPA^(key): /lɔː˦/, (sometimes, after /n/) /(n)ɔː˦/
• (Hong Kong) IPA^(key): /lɔ˥/

lor (Manglish, Singlish, colloquial Hong Kong)

2. Tagged at the end of a sentence to convey a sense of resignation or inevitability.

   Next time lor. ― Leave it for next time.

   OK lor, go ahead. ― Fine, go ahead.

   Bo pian lor. ― We don’t have a choice.

   • 2003 November 16, Suzanne Sng, The Sunday Times, Singapore, page 16:

     [B]y then, it was too late, and I just told myself, ‘Ya lor. He’s right.’

   • 2020 December 1, Eve Lock, quoting Marcus, “Many Of Us Will Save For A Wedding, But Not Retirement”, in ricemedia.co‎^[1], archived from the original on 8 August 2024:

     We had no income, so just eat at Koufu or Kopitiam lor.

   • 2023 January 3, Hykel Quek, quoting Marcus, “3 Ways To Respond to Authority, According to a Fierce (but Resigned) Hougang Uncle”, in ricemedia.co‎^[2], archived from the original on 25 May 2024:

     Within a minute, Hougang uncle moves from denial, anger, and bargaining to “ok lor I’ll just remove them”—a quintessential Singaporean pattern of resignation.

4. Used to suggest that there is an obvious, inevitable or straightforward answer to something.

   Near-synonym: lah (sense 6)

   You lor, or else still got who? ― It’s obviously you then.

   Then tell him lor. ― You go and tell him then.

   Take a cab lor, easier this way. ― Just take a cab, it’s easier this way.

   Wait till December lor. ― I guess we just have to wait till December.

   • 2009, Jean Tay, Boom, Epigram Books, →ISBN, Act I, scene viii, page 41:

     young mother: You never told me you had so much money... You sure you can afford this?
     young father: No need to worry about that. Not enough then borrow lor.

   • 2022 July 21, Sophie Chew, quoting Visakan Veerasamy, “Afraid of ‘Saying the Wrong Thing’ About Racism? Speak Up Anyway.”, in ricemedia.co‎^[3], archived from the original on 19 July 2024:

     I didn’t go to uni, just picked up the language organically from conversations around me. Twitter/Facebook, friends, news, etc … Anything I wasn’t sure of, just Google lor.

6. Suggests that the reply given is the obvious or expected one.

   At my house lor. ― At my house, where else?

   • 2018 September 17, Pan Jie, “Why Do We Greet Each Other By Asking, ‘Have You Eaten?’”, in ricemedia.co‎^[4], archived from the original on 2 October 2024:

     It’s true for me, at least. Friends under interrogation insist that ‘Have You Eaten?’ is very much alive, but when asked to recall their last encounter, answers invariably skew towards inter-generational anecdotes. “Relatives lor” is the top reply, and “Small-talk with taxi drivers” emerged as a runner-up because many feel compelled to make conversation after the initial “PIE or CTE?” decision.

   • 2024 February 6, Carrie Tan, “Advancing Mental Health”, in Parliamentary Debates: Official Report (Parliament of Singapore), volume 95:

     As a facilitator, I often ask the participants: how are you feeling now? And often, the replies I get are: "Okay lor", "Like that lor".

8. Used to reinforce an opinion, sometimes in a sarcastic manner.

   Sorry lor. ― (sarcastic) Oh I’m so sorry! (begrudgingly) OK! I'm sorry!

   Ya lor / Han nor. ― Yeah (agreement)

   • 2017 November 10, “‘Sorry ... what do you expect?’ says former top policeman on trial for Occupy assault”, in South China Morning Post‎^[5], →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 27 November 2022:

     A retired senior police officer in Hong Kong on trial over the assault of a bystander during the 2014 Occupy protests said “sorry lor” for his actions in court on Friday, admitting that he hit his accuser with a baton on instinct.

• win liao lor

Discourse particles in colloquial Singaporean and Malaysian English
⟵ More assertiveLess assertive ⟶
Expressing objection	what	Characterizing	one1–3	Expressing inevitability	lor2–3	Expressing resignation	lor1	Expressing uncertainty	leh1–2
Explanatory	mah	Assertive	lah1–14	Intensifying	sia	Agreement-seeking	hor2	Confirmation-seeking	ah1–3, hah1–3
Expressing skepticism	meh	Declarative	leh3–6, hor1, know, nia	Speculative	ba2	Conveying tentativeness	leh7–11, ba1
Non-pragmatic
Aspect-marking					liao, already
References Gupta, A. F. (1992) “The pragmatic particles of Singapore colloquial English”, in Journal of Pragmatics, volume 18, number 1, →DOI

(etymologically unrelated)

• lor mee
• lor ark
• lor sor

• Low, Ee Ling, Brown, Adam (2005) English in Singapore: An Introduction‎^[6]
• Wee, Lionel (2002) “Lor in colloquial Singapore English”, in Journal of Pragmatics‎^[7], volume 34, number 6

• LRO, ORL, orl

• a lor, loru, alor, aloru

From Latin illōrum (“of those”), genitive plural of ille, illud. Compare Romanian lor.

lor (genitive form of elj, and eali)

1. their (third-personal plural possessor)

lor (long/stressed dative form of elj, and eali)

1. to them

Always preceded by 'a'- "a lor".

• (a) lui (masculine singular dative- long/stressed form)
• (a) ljei (feminine singular dative- long/stressed form)
• lã (masculine/feminine plural dative- short/unstressed form)

lor

1. dirty

lor

1. (Cantonese) alternative form of 囉 / 啰 (particle)

Inherited from Latin illōrum.

lor (plural lors) (ORB, broad)

1. their (third-personal plural possessor)

lor (ORB, broad)

1. them (third-person plural dative or tonic)
2. theirs (third-person plural possessor)

As a possessive pronoun, has the plural lors.

• leur in DicoFranPro: Dictionnaire Français/Francoprovençal – on dicofranpro.llm.umontreal.ca
• lor in Lo trèsor Arpitan – on arpitan.eu

Borrowed from French lors and alors, Italian allora.

• IPA^(key): /lor/, /lɔɾ/

lor

1. at the time of (an event), at the same time as

• lora (“then, now”)
• lore (“then, at the time”)

• dum (“during, in (a period of time)”)

From Javanese lor (ꦭꦺꦴꦂ), from Old Javanese lor, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *lahud, from Proto-Austronesian *lahud. Doublet of laut.

• IPA^(key): [ˈlɔr]
• Hyphenation: lor

lor

1. (Java) north

• “lor” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

From Italian loro and French leur.

lor

1. (possessive) their

• IPA^(key): /ˈlor/
• Rhymes: -or
• Hyphenation: lór

lor

1. apocopic form of loro
   • 1300s–1310s, Dante Alighieri, “Canto III”, in Inferno [Hell], lines 103–105; republished as Giorgio Petrocchi, editor, La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata [The Commedia according to the ancient vulgate], 2^nd revised edition, Florence: publ. Le Lettere, 1994:

     Bestemmiavano Dio e’ lor parenti,
     l’umana spezie e ’l loco e ’l tempo e ’l seme
     di lor semenza e di lor nascimenti.

     God they blasphemed and their progenitors,
     the human race, the place, the time, the seed
     of their engendering and of their birth!

lor

1. romanization of ꦭꦺꦴꦂ

• or

• IPA^(key): /loː/

From French or.

lor

1. Gold

From French là-haut.

lor

1. on

   Antonym: anba

• lur

In sense 1, inherited from Latin illōrum. In sense 2, borrowed from Italian loro.

lor

1. them (dative)
2. them (accusative)

• “lor” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

• IPA^(key): /lor/

lor n

1. loss, destruction

Strong a-stem:

• Middle English: lore

• Joseph Bosworth, T. Northcote Toller (1898) “lor”, in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, second edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• leur
• lur

From Latin illōrum.

lor

1. to them (third-person indirect object pronoun)
   • c. 1170, Chrétien de Troyes, Érec et Énide:

     la novele lor aporte

     [He] brought the news to them

lor

1. their (third-person plural possessive)
   • c. 1155, Wace, Le Roman de Brut:

     Et lor dex en ont merciés.

     And they thanked their gods for it.

• French: leur

Inherited from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *lahud, from Proto-Austronesian *lahud. Doublet of lahut (“sea”) and lod (“sea”).

lor

1. north

   Synonyms: uttara, sĕlatan

• Javanese: ꦭꦺꦴꦂ (lor, “north”)
• Balinese: ᬮᭀᬃ (lor, “north”)
• Sundanese: ᮊᮜᮦᮁ (kalér, “north”)

Inherited from Latin illōrum (“of those”), genitive plural of ille, illud. Compare Italian loro, French leur.

• IPA^(key): /lor/

• Audio:

  (file)

lor (genitive form of ei, and ele)

1. (also possessive determiner) their

• (less frequently used): său (masculine singular), sa (feminine singular), săi (masculine plural), sale (feminine plural)

lor (dative form of ei, and ele)

1. to them

From Persian لور.

lor (definite accusative loru, plural lorlar)

1. A whey cheese similar to ricotta.

lor (definite form lor wi)

1. saliva

   Synonym: tëflit