Meanings
plural siseraries · alternative sassarara · alternative siserara · alternative sussarara
- obsoleteA severe rebuke or scolding.
[…] I retreated—retreated, Colonel, and without confusion or dishonour, and took post behind worthy Master Holdenough, who, with the spirit of a lion, threw himself in the way of the supposed spectre, and attacked it with such a siserary of Latin as might have scared the devil himself […]
1826, [Walter Scott], “[HTTPS://ARCHIVE.ORG/DETAILS/WOODSTOCKORCAVAL01SCOT CHAPTER 10]”, in Woodstock; Or, The Cavalier. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, →OCLC, page 252 - obsoleteA sharp blow.
1771, Tobias Smollett, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, Volume I, The British Novelists, Volume 30, London: V.C. and J. Rivington et al., p. 97, I ketched him in the very fect, coming out of the house-maid’s garret.—But I have gi’en the dirty slut a siserary.
Origin
Corrupted from certiorari (“legal writ transferring a cause to a higher court”).
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
siserary. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/siserary
“siserary.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/siserary. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “siserary,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/siserary.
Source: siserary on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.