“Poring” vs. “Pouring”: What’s the Difference?
This question came up during a round of in-house editing this week, so – of course –I wanted to share:
Complete this sentence: I spent hours _______ over the pages of the magazine.
A.) poring
B.) pouring
The correct answer is A, “poring.”
“Pore” means to study or read something with great care. You’d pore over a textbook or a website; you could even pore over the details of an especially interesting dream you had the night before.
“Pour” on the other hand, is something you do with a liquid. It’s the word for what you do with, say, a bottle of water or a pot of coffee.
So, you might say: “I poured myself another cup of coffee and pored through the newspaper’s horoscope section, hoping for good news and lucky lotto numbers.”
Well, you might not say that, exactly. But you get the idea.
Have any other frequently confused words? Let us know!
This post was written by The Writers for Hire, Inc. team. Stephanie Hashagen is a professional copywriter at The Writers For Hire, Inc. She has a degree in Journalism from Sam Houston State and a degree in English from St. Thomas University. 
This is one of those homophones that gives me fits. My brain automagically inserts “pouring,” even though I KNOW that isn’t right. Homophones and homonyms end up making my editor a lot of money (and costing me!).
Hehe always wondered about the difference between poring and pouring, now i know!
Thanks for sharing.
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Thank god I never use Poring or Pouring term in my vocabulary cause if not I would had been writing it wrong for years cause I would be writing pouring.
Mitch
I never tried to know the difference between poring and pouring
i have heard those term right now:S thanks for informations.
If you read a book intently, you don’t pour over it, but pore over it (unless you at the same time douse it bizarrely with a liquid). Perhaps this mistake is so common because we don’t know either verb’s origin.
Really Phunny Grammer LOL
I’m glad I ran into your site.
For at least four of my seven decades,
I’ve been misusing ‘poured’, which use
would constitute a solecism, n’est-ce pas?