different between arear vs drear

English

Etymology

See arrear (adverb).

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -??(?)

Adverb

arear (comparative more arear, superlative most arear)

1. backward; in or to the rear; behindhand

Verb

arear (third-person singular simple present arears, present participle arearing, simple past and past participle areared)

1. To raise; to set up; to stir up.

Portuguese

Verb

arear (first-person singular present indicative areio, past participle areado)

1. (transitive) to sand (to abrade with sand or sandpaper)
2. (transitive) to sand (to cover with sand)

Conjugation

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /d???/

Etymology 1

Shortening of dreary.

Adjective

drear (comparative drearer, superlative drearest)

1. (poetic) Dreary.
   • 1794, William Blake, Earth's Answer, lines 1-2

     Earth raised up her head
     From the darkness dread and drear,

   • 1874, James Thomson, The City of Dreadful Night

     I spoke, perplexed by something in the signs
     Of desolation I had seen and heard
     In this drear pilgrimage to ruined shrines:

   • 1922, A. E. Housman, Last Poems, XXVIII, lines 1-2

     Now dreary dawns the eastern light,
     And fall of eve is drear, [...]

Etymology 2

Back-formation from dreary.

Noun

drear (plural drears)

1. (obsolete) Gloom; sadness.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, VI.2:

     She thankt him deare / Both for that newes he did to her impart, / And for the courteous care which he did beare / Both to her love and to her selfe in that sad dreare.

Anagrams

• Rader, arder, arred, darer, rared, rear'd, reard