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-our

Forming nouns.

Derived from various sources.

For the most part, words in ‑our are variants of those in ‑or (see ‑or1 and ‑or2). However, there are some that derive from a variety of other sources, such as endeavour (late Middle English, in the sense ‘exert oneself’; from the phrase put oneself in devoir, do one's utmost), harbour (Old English herebeorg, shelter, refuge), neighbour (Old English, from nēah, near, plus gebūr, inhabitant, peasant, farmer), and parlour (Anglo-Norman French parlur, place for speaking, from Latin parlare, speak). All these are usually written ‑or in American English.

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