Sere

/sɪə/ · adjective

Meaning

(archaic or literary, poetic) Without moisture; dry..

Definitions by Sense

1. (archaic or literary, poetic) Without moisture; dry.
2. (archaic or literary, poetic) Of thoughts, etc.: barren, fruitless.
3. (obsolete) Of fabrics: threadbare, worn out.
4. (ecology) 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.
5. (obsolete) A claw, a talon.
6. (obsolete or British, dialectal) Individual, separate, set apart.
7. (obsolete or British, dialectal) Different; diverse.

Example Sentences

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

[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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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).

Synonyms for sere

Antonyms for sere

Related Words

Word Forms

• serer
• serest
• seres
• more sere
• most sere
• seer

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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