Sire

/saɪə(ɹ)/ · noun

Meaning

A lord, master, or other person in authority, most commonly used vocatively: formerly in speaking to elders and superiors, later only when addressing a sovereign..

Definitions by Sense

1. A lord, master, or other person in authority, most commonly used vocatively: formerly in speaking to elders and superiors, later only when addressing a sovereign.
2. A male animal that has fathered a particular offspring (especially used of domestic animals and/or in biological research).
3. (obsolete) A father; the head of a family; the husband.
4. (obsolete) A creator; a maker; an author; an originator.
5. (fantasy) The vampire who turned another person.
6. (transitive, of a male) To father; to beget.
7. (transitive, fantasy) To turn (another person) into a vampire.

Example Sentences

He but a Duke, would haue his Sonne a King, / And raiſe his iſſue like a louing Sire.

Sometimes, also, he reproached himself, for abandoning those abodes where his father had dwelt. “Who knows,” said he to himself, “whether the shades of the departed are allowed to pursue, every where, the objects of their affection? Perhaps it is only permitted them to wander about the spot where their ashes repose! Perhaps in this moment does the spirit of my sire regret the absence of his son, while distance prevents my hearing his voice, exerted to recall me.[”]

The concession of the King, who, be it also remembered, is a Bourbon, under such circumstances, is one of a suspicious character. Those who remember how faithlessly his father behaved in 1821, under precisely similar circumstances, to his subjects, cannot help entertaining the apprehensions that the son, like the sire, is playing fast and loose with his people, and that he will turn on them when the Austrians come to his relief.

Most musical of mourners, weep again! / Lament anew, Urania!—He died, / Who was the sire of an immortal strain, […]

There is a toxin in a vampire’s fangs that will infect its victim when the sire drinks deeply and fully of their blood.

Ever since Antonio’s escape from his sire in 1942, he had never been tempted to return to the vampire fold.

“She is my sire. I cannot defy her as long as she is more powerful than me.”

In these travels, my father sired thirteen children in all, four boys and nine girls.

Synonyms for sire

Antonyms for sire

Related Words

Word Forms

• sires
• siring
• sired

Usage Notes

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

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