Or (Hastings' Dictionary)

There are obsolete uses of this word in AV. 1. For before, Ps 90? ‘Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth’; Pr 8 ‘or ever the earth was’; so Ec 125, Ca 613, Dn 6%, Sir 1819, All the examples are of ‘or ever,’ and all are retained in RV. The RV has even introduced the phrase into Ec 12% The Amer. RV allows it in Ps 90? but substitutes ‘while’ in Ec 12'::8, In other writers we find ‘or’ alone, as Dn 8* Coy. ‘It wylbe longe or it come to passe’; Hos 8° Coy.

‘ How longe wil it be, or they can be clensed?’; Ex 10% Tind. ‘ How longe shall it be, or thou wilt submyt thy selfe to me?’ As an ex- ample of ‘ or ever’ take Shaks. Hamlet, τ. 11. 183— ‘Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven, Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio.’ The word in this sense is probetly a corruption of Anglo-Saxon aer, which is properly represented in SES English by ‘ere,’ but is found in earl English under various forms, as er, ear, yer.

t We find also ‘or ere,’ as Milton, Nativity, 85— ‘The cin haat on the lawn, Or ere the point of dawn, Sate simply chatting in a rustick row.’ And ‘ere ever’ is found in Sir 23” ‘He knew all things ere ever they were created,’ RV ‘or ever.’ 2. For either.—1 S 26 ‘Or his day shall come to die; or he shall descend into battle, and perish.’ Cf. Shaks. Henry V. τ. ii.

12— ‘We pray you to proceed, And justly and religiously unfold Why the law Salique, that they have in France, Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim.’ J. HASTINGS.