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Sere
Definitions
- 1 Without moisture; dry. archaic, literary, poetic
"The autumn winds rushing / Waft the leaves that are searest, / But our flower was in flushing, / When blighting was nearest."
- 2 Individual, separate, set apart. British, dialectal, obsolete
"Therefore I have ſeene good ſhooters [archers] which would have for everye bowe a ſere caſe, made of wullen clothe, and then you maye putte three or four of them ſo caſed, into a lether caſe if you will."
- 3 Of thoughts, etc.: barren, fruitless. archaic, literary, poetic
"Our talk had been serious and sober, But our thoughts they were palsied and sere— Our memories were treacherous and sere—"
- 4 Different; diverse. British, dialectal, obsolete
"Thou wert well-nee moidered [footnote: Distracted.] wi' me, I know, but it thou'd telled me, Mary, I mun do better or else we mun goo our sere-ways [footnote: Different ways.], belike I should a done better. I'm nobbut a mon, Mary, a lundy day-tale mon [footnote: Clumsy day-labourer.]."
- 5 Of fabrics: threadbare, worn out. obsolete
"The roaring wind! it roar'd far off, / It did not come anear; / But with its sound it shook the sails / That were so thin and sere."
- 1 (used especially of vegetation) having lost all moisture wordnet
- 1 A proposed language family of Ubangian languages spoken in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- 1 A natural succession of animal or plant communities in an ecosystem, especially a series of communities succeeding one another from the time a habitat is unoccupied to the point when a climax community is achieved.
"We examined one of several seres found in the middle Rocky Mountains that progress from a subalpine or montane forb-dominated meadow to a climax forest dominated by Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii)."
- 2 A claw, a talon. obsolete
"Her [Minerva's] seres struck through Achilles' tent, and closely she instill'd / Heaven's most-to-be-desired feast to his great breast, and fill'd / His sinews with that sweet supply, for fear unsavoury fast / Should creep into his knees."
- 3 Acronym of survival, evasion, resistance, and escape (“training to prepare Western forces to survive when evading or captured”). abbreviation, acronym, alt-of, uncountable
Etymology
From Middle English ser, sere, seare, seer, seere, seir, seyr (“dry, withered; emaciated, shrivelled; brittle; bare; dead, lifeless; barren, useless”), from Old English sēar, sīere (“dry, withered; barren; sere”), from Proto-West Germanic *sauʀ(ī), from Proto-Germanic *sauzaz (“dry, parched”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂sews-, *sh₂ews- (“to be dry”). Cognate with Dutch zoor (“dry and coarse”), Greek αὖος (av́os, “dry”), Lithuanian sausas (“dry”), Middle Low German sôr (Low German soor (“arid, dry”)), Old Church Slavonic соухъ (suχŭ, “dry”). Doublet of sear and sare.
From Latin serere, present active infinitive of serō (“to entwine, interlace, link together; to join in a series, string together”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ser- (“to bind, tie together; to thread”).
From Old French serre (modern French serre (“talon”)), from serrer (“to grip tightly; to shut”) (modern French serrer (“to squeeze; to tighten”)), from Vulgar Latin serrāre (“to close, shut”), from Late Latin serāre, present active infinitive of serō (“to fasten with a bolt; to bar, bolt”), from sera (“bar for fastening doors”), from serō (“to bind or join together; entwine, interlace, interweave, plait”); see further at etymology 2.
From Middle English ser, sere, schere, seer, seere, seir, seyr, seyre (“different; diverse, various; distinct, individual; parted, separated; many, several”), from Old Norse sér (“for oneself; separately”, dative reflexive pronoun, literally “to oneself”), from sik (“oneself, myself, yourself, herself, himself; ourselves, yourselves, themselves”), from Proto-Germanic *sek (“oneself”), from Proto-Indo-European *swé (“self”). The English word is cognate with Danish sær (“singular”), især (“especially, particularly”), German sich (“oneself; herself, himself, itself; themselves”), Icelandic sig (“oneself; herself, himself, itself; themselves”), Latin sē (“herself, himself, itself; themselves”), Scots seir, Swedish sär (“particularly”).
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