means Naturally occurring rock or mineral from which a valuable metal can be profitably extracted.

from From Old English ōra, 'unwrought metal, ore,' which tangled early on with ār, 'brass, copper, bronze' — a relative of Latin aes, the metal-money word. The two senses, the raw rock and the worked metal, sat close enough that English fused them into a single gleaming term for the stuff worth digging up.