noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
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"The smoke found its way out of the holes in the roof as it liked best; and nearly over the fire was a black smoky shelf, supporting several masses of that inferior white cheese, called Serac."
"Perhaps the finest part of it [the Lysjoch] is the grand sérac scenery of the Zwillinge Glacier. In August, 1876, a party of four, having missed the right track in crossing this pass when the snow was in very bad condition, were carried down in an avalanche of loose snow probably started by their own weight."
"The smoke found its way out of the holes in the roof as it liked best; and nearly over the fire was a black smoky shelf, supporting several masses of that inferior white cheese, called Serac."
Often sérac: a hard, cone-shaped, pale green, strongly flavoured cheese from Switzerland made from skimmed cowmilk and blue fenugreek (Trigonella caerulea); Schabziger, Sapsago. It is usually eaten grated, mixed with butter, or in a fondue.
Common synonyms include: berg, calf, floe, glacier, glaze, ice.
The smoke found its way out of the holes in the roof as it liked best; and nearly over the fire was a black smoky shelf, supporting several masses of that inferior white cheese, called Serac.
Pronounced /sɛˈɹæk/.
From Swiss French sérac (“kind of cheese; sharp tower of ice”), from Franco-Provençal sera, seré, from Latin seraceum, from serum (“whey”), from Proto-Indo-European *ser- (“to flow, run”). Sense 2 is from the resemblance of the towers of ice to the cheese, which tends to cleave into rectangular pieces.