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'Were' and 'wore' sound the same to me.

Is it true at native english users' ears?

from dictionary: [wɔ:r] for wore and [wə́:r] for were

gomadeng
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    There’s a fairly universal answer to this particular question, but for similar questions you should specify the accent you’re interested in. For example, “marry”, “merry” and “Mary” are all pronounced the same in some US accents, but are all different in UK received pronunciation. – Mike Scott Feb 13 '21 at 15:44
  • As a general rule, if the dictionary tells you two words have different pronunciations, then most native speakers can tell them apart. Although there may be some exceptions if you consider accents. – NotThatGuy Feb 14 '21 at 01:45

3 Answers3

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No, they do not sound the same to native speakers. There's a striking difference between 'were' and 'wore'.

British English

Were: In British English, 'were' in its strong form (or slow speech) is pronounced with the open-mid central unrounded vowel /ɜː/. In its weak form, it's pronounced with a schwa /ə/.

Wore: It's pronounced with the open-mid back rounded vowel /ɔː/ (rhymes with war, sore, law).

Note that in Southern British English, they're pronounced without the /r/ sound because British English is non-rhotic.


American English

Were is pronounced with an r-coloured (rhotacised) vowel1: with /ɝ/ in its strong form and /ɚ/ in its weak form. (The rhotacised versions of central vowels are more common than others.)

Wore is pronounced with the open-mid back rounded vowel /ɔ/ followed by the consonant /ɹ/

Another important difference is that of vowel roundedness; the vowel in wore is rounded while that of were isn't.

  1. I've explained the vowel chart and the difference between /ɝ/ and /ɜ/ in the linked answer.
Void
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    Perhaps worth noting that in some dialects like that of Liverpool (UK) were rhymes with wear and where. – mdewey Feb 13 '21 at 11:27
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    @mdewe Although not with Tyne and Wear. (I know, we could do this all day with English pronunciation! ;) – Graham Feb 13 '21 at 17:02
  • "Wore" and "war" don't just rhyme, they are homophones. – NotThatGuy Feb 14 '21 at 01:38
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    @NotThatGuy: In whose accent? Not the one I hear around me (in the western US), or many others. That's really the problem with this question. Not to detract from this answer, but it really depends on who's talking. – jamesqf Feb 14 '21 at 02:47
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    @jamesqf I'm talking about the part where the answerer wrote "wore: ... rhymes with war", i.e. British English. Note that I said they "don't just rhyme", which implies someone else said they rhyme. I don't think it's possible for them to rhyme without also being homophones in any accent I can imagine. – NotThatGuy Feb 14 '21 at 04:10
  • Where is the front of the mouth? Behind your front lips? Behind your teeth? – Araucaria - Not here any more. Feb 14 '21 at 17:29
  • @Araucaria-Nothereanymore. do you mean the front part of the tongue? i don't know where I've written front part of the mouth.... (i can't explain it as well as you can and because you and some other experienced users are not posting answers anymore, i try my best. i always enjoy reading your thorough answers and wish i could explain the way you did.... ) – Void Feb 14 '21 at 19:52
  • "the highest point of the tongue is positioned relatively in front in the mouth". – Araucaria - Not here any more. Feb 14 '21 at 23:46
  • @Araucaria-Nothereanymore.: Oh.. I mean the tongue is positioned in the front relative to the back vowels. – Void Feb 15 '21 at 02:49
  • Ok, but you know that the "front" of the tongue is towards the back of the mouth right? What worries me about this post is that it would make learners think that English STRUT is a back vowel and that THOUGHT and NURSE were open mid, that NURSE was lower than schwa and so forth. But the symbols used for language-specific transcriptions don't represent the same values as those symbols when used in the IPA, most especially when it comes to vowels! – Araucaria - Not here any more. Feb 15 '21 at 02:55
  • Well, when I say 'towards the back', I mean just under where your soft and hard palate meet. Kind of the high point of the arch of the roof of your mouth. – Araucaria - Not here any more. Feb 15 '21 at 02:58
  • @NotThatGuy: Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant by homophone? "...two or more words having the same pronunciation...", so to, too, and two would be homophones in most dialects, but rhyming words in general wouldn't. (I did look up the definition before writing that comment :-)) – jamesqf Feb 15 '21 at 17:25
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    @jamesqf I was just talking about "wore" and "war". Other words may rhyme without being homophones. – NotThatGuy Feb 15 '21 at 18:20
4

Yes, for native English speakers "were" and "wore" are easy to tell apart.

salt
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2

Yes, "were" and "wore" are pronounced differently.

List of Sentences Containing Words Which Rhyme With "Were"

  • burrs come from thorny plants.
  • A smaller percentage of wealthy Americans wear coats made from real animal FUR today than in the year 1927.
  • My dog purrs like a cat.
  • slurs are mean things to say to another person.
  • I am sure that I want to cancel the my airplane trip.
  • The whir of the fan lulled me to sleep.

List of words Rhyming with "wore"

  • In war, it is permissible to kill a solider who never wronged you, but killing a man for raping your daughter is murder.
  • pour
  • chore
  • boar
  • bore
  • core
  • door
  • drawer
  • floor
  • for
  • four
  • gore
  • more
  • oar
  • or
  • pour
  • roar
  • score
  • shore
  • snore
  • soar
  • sore
  • your
Samuel Muldoon
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    Thx. Samuel. the last 'your' is not pronounced as 'sore'. – gomadeng Feb 14 '21 at 04:49
  • @Brandon: 'Your' and 'sore' do rhyme in most accents (I rhyme them in colloquial speech). – Void Feb 14 '21 at 08:44
  • [ jʊr or jə(r) ] for AM, [ jɔː(r) ] for BM – gomadeng Feb 14 '21 at 08:47
  • @Brandon: Those are what's called 'citation forms', meaning they are the ideal pronunciations. In real life, no one pronounces words the way dictionaries do. – Void Feb 14 '21 at 09:36
  • "sure" doesn't rhyme with "were" as far as I've heard - "sure" rhymes with either "wore", or in other accents it doesn't rhyme with either of them but instead with "endure", "mature" etc. All the other examples are good. :) – Keiji Feb 14 '21 at 15:05
  • "War", "drawer", and "your" don't rhyme with "wore", at least in English as it's spoken around here. – jamesqf Feb 16 '21 at 06:46
  • @Brandon your and sore rhyme with each-other in American English. – Samuel Muldoon Jun 07 '21 at 06:25
  • @jamesqf "The man wore a shirt to dinner".... "The Germans went to war with France".... "The tale wore thin after 2 hours of listening" .... "wore" and "war" are pronounced identically in the United States. The words "wore" and "war" are heterographs of eachother. – Samuel Muldoon Jun 07 '21 at 06:29
  • @Samuel Muldoon: Not in my part (intermountain west) of the US, I assure you. I don't do phonetic alphabet, but wore is pronounced with a distinct o sound, war with an a sound. Of course regional accents may vary. – jamesqf Jun 08 '21 at 17:11
  • @jamesqf I have lived in Denver, Colorado most of my life. In Denver, most people pronounce "wore" (as in clothing) the same way as "war" (as in soldiers, bombs, etc...). Also, in every Hollywood movie I have ever seen, the words "wore" and "war" are pronounced the same way. – Samuel Muldoon Jun 17 '21 at 09:40