• (America) IPA: /sɪɚ/
• (British) IPA: /sɪə(ɹ)/

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.

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.

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

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.

• French: (cooking) saisir, griller, brûler, calciner, marquer
• German: ausbrennen, versengen, scharf anbraten, ausdörren, verbrennen, austrocknen, einbrennen
• Italian: rosolare, bruciacchiare, fare passare al salto
• Portuguese: queimar, chamuscar, tostar
• Russian: прижигать
• Spanish: chamuscar

sear (plural sears)

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

• Russian: ожо́г

• French: gâchette
• German: Abzugsstück, Fangklinke
• Russian: шепта́ло
• Spanish: fiador

Variant of Sayer.

1. Surname.