the.com/lore
the breadcrumb trail civilizations leave so the future can argue about them
means The accumulated body of knowledge, traditions, and stories about a subject, passed down informally rather than through official instruction.
from From Old English 'lar,' meaning teaching, learning, or instruction — a close relative of the verb 'learn' and the German 'Lehre' (doctrine, teaching). For centuries it simply meant what you were taught; only later did it drift toward the unofficial, hand-me-down knowledge of folklore, myth, and craft — the wisdom you absorb rather than the kind you're examined on.
- origin
- From Old English lar, meaning teaching or knowledge
- deep memory
- Oral lore preserved facts for thousands of unwritten years
- modern shift
- Now means a fandom's tangled backstory more than folk wisdom
- hidden depth
- Aboriginal songlines encode maps as memorized lore
the elder scrolls series — bethesda's video game franchise with deep lore spanning multiple games since 1994
warhammer 40000 — games workshop's tabletop universe with 30+ years of accumulated narrative and background