A term for “land” as in “(dry) land as opposed to the sea”, mentioned in the Quendi and Eldar essay of 1959-60 (WJ/413) and again in notes from around 1968 (PE17/106-107).
Possible Etymology: In the Quendi and Eldar essay this term was derived from primitive ✶ndōro, but in the aforementioned 1968 notes Tolkien clarified that its stem form was nŏr-. This means it was probably derived from ancient ✱ndŏr-, where the long vowel in the uninflected form was inherited from the Common Eldarin subjective form ✱ndōr, a phenomenon also seen in words like nér (ner-) “man”. I prefer this second derivation, as it makes the independent word more distinct from the suffixal form -ndor or -nóre used in the names of countries.
nór noun "land" (stem nor-, PE17:106) this is land as opposed to water and sea (nor in Letters:308). Cf. nórë.