Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
"MOORS" is a plural of: moor. |
Date "MOORS" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1517. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Literature | Moors In the Middle Ages, the Europeans called all Mahometans Moors, in the same manner as the Eastern nations called all inhabitants of Europe Franks. Camoens, in the Lusiad, terms the Indians "Moors." (Bk. viii.). Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The Moors is the ancient name for the indigenous nomadic Berber people in North Africa, who converted to Islam in the 7th century. The name corresponds to the kingdom of the Mauri, Mauretania, which its last king Bocchus II willed to Octavian in 33 BCE, after which it became the Roman province of Mauretania. Mauretania lay in present day Morocco and Western Algeria. The name of Mauri was applied by the Romans to all non-romanized natives of North Africa still ruled by their own chiefs, until the 3rd century AD.Since the Mauri were a dark-skinned people in comparison to Europeans, 'Moor' came to be applied indiscriminately by English speakers to blacks, muslims, saracens, Persians or Indians. Shakespeare's Othello was 'the Moor of Venice.' During the 17th century, Africans were sometimes distinguished from others as blackamoors.
In 711 AD, some Moors invaded Visigoth Christian Spain. Under their leader Tariq ibn-Ziyad they brought most of Spain under Islamic rule in an eight-year campaign. They attempted to move northeast across the Pyrenees Mountains but were defeated by the Frank Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours in 732. The Moors ruled in Spain, except for small areas in the northwest and largely Basque regions in the Pyrenees, and in North Africa for several decades. The Moorish state suffered civil conflict in the 750s.
The country then broke up into a number of mostly Islamic fiefdoms, which were consolidated under the Caliphate of Cordoba. Christian states based in the north and west slowly extended their power over Spain. Galicia, León, Navarre, Aragon, Catalonia or Marca Hispanica, and eventually Castile became Christian in the next several centuries. This period is known for the tolerant acceptance of Christians, Muslims and Jews living in the same territories. Although, the Caliphate of Córdoba collapsed in 1031 and the Islamic territory in Spain came to be ruled by North African Moors.
In 1212 a coalition of Christian kings under the leadership of Alfonso VIII of Castile drove the muslims from Central Spain. However the Moorish Kingdom of Granada thrived for three more centuries. This kingdom is known in modern time for architectural gems such as the Alhambra. On January 2, 1492, the leader of the last Muslim stronghold in Granada surrendered to armies of a recently united Christian Spain. The remaining Muslim were forced to leave Spain or convert to Christianity. These descendants of the Muslims were named moriscos. They were an important portion of the peasants in some territories, like Aragon, Valencia or Andalusia, until their systematic expulsion in the years from 1609 to 1614. Henre Lapeyre has estimated that this affected 300,000 out of a total of 8 million inhabitants at the time.
In the meantime, the tide of Islamic conquest had rolled not just westward to Spain, but also eastward, through India, the Malayan peninsula, and Indonesia, up to Mindanao, one of the major islands of an archipelago, which the Spanish had reached during their voyages westward from the New World. By 1521, the ships of Magellan had themselves reached that island archipelago, which they named the Philippines, after Philip II of Spain. On Mindanao, the Spanish also named these kris-bearing people as Moros, or 'Moors'. See Reconquista.
See also: Islamic architecture, Othello, the Moor of Venice, Blackamoor
Not to be confused with moor land.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Moors."
Crosswords: MOORS |
| English words defined with "MOORS": Alcayde, alcazar, Atabal ♦ broom tree, burnoose, burnous, burnouse ♦ Cornish heath ♦ Erica vagans ♦ Genista anglica ♦ Lagopus scoticus ♦ moorbird, moorfowl, moorgame, Moorish, Moorish architecture, Moorpan, Moory, moresque, Muzarab ♦ needle furze ♦ petty whin ♦ red grouse. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "MOORS": Alcantara, Alonzo of Aguilar, Arabic Figures, Aviz ♦ Benaiah, BOAT-RENTAL CLERK, boat-ride operator ♦ Cat Proverbs, Catholic King, Cava ♦ dock attendant ♦ Hagarenes ♦ ISABELLA, Island of the Seven Cities ♦ lack cla, Lady of Mercy, Lazarillo de Tormes, Lockhart ♦ Matamore, Melisendra, Moor-slayer ♦ Westmoreland, WHARF ATTENDANT. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "MOORS": Castilian. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "MOORS" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Afrikaan (Mauretanian, Moorish, Moresque), Dutch (Mauretanian, Moorish, Moresque). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | On the moors, we were attacked by a lycanthrope, a werewolf (American Werewolf in London, An; writing credit: John Landis) Keep clear of the moors. (American Werewolf in London, An; writing credit: John Landis) | |
Lyrics | Out on the wiley, windy moors (Wuthering heights; performing artist: Kate Bush) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
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| "Ralph's Cross" by L L Commentary: "Ralph's Cross at sunset, North York Moors, UK." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Civil Liberties | Mauritania | Nearly all these Malian refugees are Moors. (references) |
Economic History | Andorra | Tradition holds that Charlemagne granted a charter to the Andorran people in return for their fighting the Moors. (references) |
Mauritania | Aristocrat and servant castes developed, yielding "white" (aristocracy) and "black" Moors (the enslaved indigenous class). (references) | |
Human Rights | Mauritania | In some cases, the fallow land was granted to wealthy Moors who developed commercial agricultural enterprises. (references) |
Minorities | Mauritania | Under the separate track system, Moors generally attended Arabic language schools, while Halpulaars, Soninke, and Wolof attended French-language schools. (references) |
Mauritania | The majority of those known as Black Moors are Haratine, literally meaning "one who has been freed," although some Black Moor families never were enslaved. (references) | |
Women | Mauritania | In practice polygyny is very rare among Moors but is common among other ethnic groups. (references) |
Mauritania | The rate of divorce among Moors is estimated to be 37 percent, and the remarriage rate after divorce is 72.5 percent. (references) | |
Mauritania | One form of such mistreatment is the forced feeding of adolescent girls (gavage), which is practiced only among the Moors. (references) | |
Worker Rights | Mauritania | Slavery was abolished officially three times in the country, most recently by the post-independence government in 1980. Even before 1980, the practice of slavery among the traditionally pastoralist Moors had been reduced greatly by the accelerated desertification of the 1970's; many White Moors dismissed their former Black Moor slaves because the depletion of their herds left them unable either to employ or to feed slaves. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "MOORS" is generally used as a noun (plural) -- approximately 73.13% of the time. "MOORS" is used about 561 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (plural) | 73.13% | 411 | 13,718 |
| Noun (proper) | 23.49% | 132 | 27,743 |
| Lexical Verb (-s form) | 3.38% | 19 | 80,337 |
| Total | 100.00% | 561 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following table summarizes the usage of "MOORS" based on a population census conducted in the United States. Ranks and frequencies are based on all names reported and classified. |
| Name | Usage/Gender | Usage per 100 million Persons | Rank in USA |
| Moors | Last name | 1,000 | 18,077 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits. | |||
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "MOORS": Clayton-le-moors, heather-moors. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "MOORS"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
German | macht fest (belays, tightens). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | oorsmay.(various references) | |
Turkish | palamar (cable, hawser, lashing, moorings, warp), dubalar, şamandıralar. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words ending with "MOORS": blackamoors, unmoors. (additional references) | |
| |
"MOORS" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: meorr, Meroz, mior, Moars, Moers, mojos, mokoro, mooks, mooors, moore, moorse, mor, Morbs, morc, mord, morg, Moros, Moroz, morr, mors, Morsa, Morso, Morss, mour, moura, mouri, mousr, mozos, muros, murs, Mursa, mursi, mursy, Murzi, nors, omars, omer, omers, omor, oors. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "MOORS" (pronounced muh"rz) |
| 3 | -uh" r z | assures, boors, brochures, cures, detours, endures, ensures, insures, lures, matures, obscures, reassures, secures, tours, yours. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: rooms. | |
| Words within the letters "m-o-o-r-s" | |
-1 letter: moor, moos, mors, roms, room. | |
-2 letters: moo, mor, mos, oms, ors, rom, som. | |
-3 letters: mo, om, or, os, so. | |
| Words containing the letters "m-o-o-r-s" | |
+1 letter: bromos, brooms, grooms, morons, morose, morros, motors, promos, romeos, vrooms. | |
+2 letters: amoroso, amorous, boomers, chromos, cormous, dromons, formols, maroons, moorish, mooters, morions, morphos, morrows, oosperm, ormolus, osmolar, pogroms, prosoma, romanos, roomers, roomies, sunroom, unmoors, varooms. | |
+3 letters: acrosome, barrooms, bedrooms, bloomers, boredoms, boresome, chromous, colorism, comforts, comports, composer, conforms, dayrooms, doomster, doormats, dormouse, dromonds, enormous, foremost, foursome, groomers, gunrooms, hormones, humorous, imporous, impostor, ionomers, isomorph, legrooms, lobworms, lordomas, madronos, malodors, mesotron, miscolor, moidores, monitors, monomers, monteros, monurons, moochers, moonrise, moorages, moorhens, mooriest, moorings, morellos, moroccos, moronism, morosely, morosity, morrions, motorbus, motorise, motorist, mudrooms, mushroom, newsroom, omicrons, omikrons, oosperms, postform, promisor, promotes, prosomal, prosomas, reblooms, regrooms, resmooth, restroom, ribosome, robotism, rollmops, roomfuls, roomiest, saleroom, showroom, sickroom, slowworm, smoother, sombrero, sombrous, sonogram, sunrooms, sycomore, taprooms, tearooms, timorous, tremolos, tumorous, washroom, woomeras, zoosperm. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Digital Art 7. Quotations: Non-fiction 8. Usage Frequency | 9. Names: Frequency 10. Expressions 11. Translations: Modern 12. Derivations | 13. Rhymes 14. Anagrams 15. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.