sear
see also: Sear
Pronunciation
  • (America) IPA: /sɪɚ/
  • (British) IPA: /sɪə(ɹ)/
Etymology 1

From Middle English sere, seer, seere, from Old English sēar, sīere ("dry, sere, sear, withered, barren"), from Proto-West Germanic *sauʀ(ī), from Proto-Germanic *sauzaz, from Proto-Indo-European *sh₂ews- (also reconstructed as *h₂sews-).

Cognate with Dutch zoor, Low German soor, German sohr, dialectal Norwegian søyr, Lithuanian saũsas, Homeric Ancient Greek αὖος. Doublet of sere and sare.

Adjective

sear (comparative searer, superlative searest)

  1. Dry; withered, especially of vegetation.
    • 1620 January 17 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), Benjamin Jonson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “Newes from the New World Discover'd in the Moon. A Masque, […]”, in The Workes of Benjamin Jonson. The Second Volume. […] (Second Folio), London: […] Richard Meighen, published 1640–1641, →OCLC ↗, page 42 ↗:
      There are in all but three vvayes of going thither [to the moon]. […] [The] third, Old Empedocles vvay; vvho vvhen he leaped into Ætna, having a drie ſeare bodie, and light, the ſmoake took him and vvhift him up into the Moone, vvhere he lives yet vvaving up and dovvne like a feather, all foot and embers comming out of that cole-pit; our Poet met him, and talkt vvith him.
    • 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 ↗:
      The autumn winds rushing / Waft the leaves that are searest, / But our flower was in flushing, / When blighting was nearest.
Etymology 2

From Middle English seren, seeren, from Old English sēarian, from Proto-West Germanic *sauʀēn; compare also Proto-Germanic *sauzijaną.

Verb

sear (sears, present participle searing; simple past and past participle seared)

  1. (transitive) To char, scorch, or burn the surface of (something) with a hot instrument.
  2. To wither; to dry up.
  3. (transitive, figurative) To make callous or insensible.
  4. (transitive, figurative) To mark permanently, as if by burning.
    The events of that day were seared into her memory.
Translations Noun

sear (plural sears)

  1. A scar produced by searing
  2. Part of a gun that retards the hammer until the trigger is pulled.
Translations Translations
Sear
Etymology

Variant of Sayer.

Proper noun
  1. Surname.



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