sere

comparative serer · superlative serest

1. archaicliterarypoeticWithout moisture; dry.

   […] a blighted land / More wasted, serer than before.

   1979, Pintíg: Sa Malamig Na Bakal: Lifepulse in Cold Steel: Poems and Letters from Philippine Prisons, Hong Kong: Resource Centre for Philippine Concerns, →OCLC, page 28

   4 more examples

   The autumn winds rushing / Waft the leaves that are searest, / But our flower was in flushing, / When blighting was nearest.

   1810, Walter Scott, “Canto III. The Gathering.”, in The Lady of the Lake; […], Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for John Ballantyne and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, and William Miller, →OCLC, stanza XVI, page 118

   [T]he recitation of Border Minstrelsy, or a well-sung ballad, served to revive the sere and yellow leaf of age by their refreshing memories of the pleasurable past.

   1868, Henry Lonsdale, “The Græmes, Grames, or Grahams of the Borders”, in The Worthies of Cumberland. The Right Honourable Sir J[ames] R[obert] G[eorge] Graham, Bart. of Netherby, London: George Routledge & Sons, […], →OCLC, page 1

   Perhaps it is the scant, delicate detail revealing finer lines, which thus turns corners of Tuscany into an imaginary Hellas. Or perhaps the mere sunny austerity of these rocky sere places, the twitter of birds telling of renewed life, suggesting what, to us, seem the homes of the world's happy youth.

   1905, Vernon Lee [pseudonym; Violet Paget], The Enchanted Woods and Other Essays on the Genius of Places, London; New York, N.Y.: John Lane, →OCLC, page 314

   Except for their crawlers, and a crow flickering past in the mist, nothing moved: the grass was sere and golden, the dirt beneath white and gravelly.

   1984, Vernor Vinge, “The Peace War”, in Stanley Schmidt, editor, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, volume 104, New York, N.Y.: Davis Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, chapter 37, page 47, column 2

   Synonyms: sare, sear, anhydrous, arid, bone dry, droughty, dry, dry as a bone

2. archaicliterarypoeticOf thoughts, etc.: barren, fruitless.

   Our talk had been serious and sober, But our thoughts they were palsied and sere— Our memories were treacherous and sere—

   1847, Edgar Allan Poe, Ulalume: A Ballad

3. obsoleteOf fabrics: threadbare, worn out.

   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.

   1797–1798 (date written), [Samuel Taylor Coleridge], “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere”, in Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems, London: […] J[ohn] & A[rthur] Arch, […], published 1798, →OCLC, part V, page 27

plural seres

1. biologyA natural succession community of organisms in an ecosystem, especially a series of communities succeeding one another from a time when habitat is unoccupied or disturbed to the time when a climax community is achieved.First known use early 20th c.

   [C]ommunity types may represent either climax plant associations or successional communities within a sere.

   1988 December, Walter F. Mueggler, “Approach”, in Aspen Community Types of the Intermountain Region (General Technical Report; INT-250), Ogden, Ut.: Intermountain Research Station, Forest Service, United States Department of Agriculture, →OCLC, page 5, column 1

   2 more examples

   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).

   1980 August, Douglas C. Andersen, James A. MacMahon, Michael L. Wolfe, “Herbivorous Mammals along a Montane Sere: Community Structure and Energetics”, in Journal of Mammology, volume 61, number 3, Baltimore, Md.: American Society of Mammalogists, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 21 Jul 2018, page 501

   [S]ome communities persisted as repeating early successional seres ("disclimaxes"), while climax communities could contain small areas of different sere communities.

   2007, Thomas J. Stohlgren, “History and Background, Baggage and Direction”, in Measuring Plant Diversity: Lessons from the Field, Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, part I (The Past and Present), page 31

   Synonyms: seral community

plural seres

1. obsoleteA claw, a talon.

   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.

   [1611?], Homer, “Book XIX”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. […], London: […] Nathaniell Butter, →OCLC; republished as The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets, […], new edition, volume I, London: Charles Knight and Co., […], 1843, →OCLC, page 149

comparative more sere · superlative most sere · alternative seer

1. UKdialectalobsoleteIndividual, separate, set apart.

   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.

   1544 (date written; published 1571), Roger Ascham, Toxophilus, the Schole, or Partitions, of Shooting. […], London: […] Thomas Marshe, →OCLC; republished in The English Works of Roger Ascham, […], London: […] R[obert] and J[ames] Dodsley, […], and J[ohn] Newbery, […], 1761, →OCLC, book 2, page 137

2. UKdialectalobsoleteDifferent; diverse.

   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.].

   1910, James Prior, “Bishoped Porridge”, in Fortuna Chance, London: Constable & Co. Ltd., →OCLC, page 316

1. abbreviationacronymuncountablegovernmentAcronym of survival, evasion, resistance, and escape (“training to prepare forces to survive when evading or captured”).

1. A proposed language family of Ubangian languages spoken in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.