sere
1 Americanadjective
noun
adjective
verb
noun
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The entire sequence of ecological communities successively occupying an area from the initial stage to the climax community.
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See more at succession
Etymology
Origin of sere1
before 900; Middle English seer ( e ), Old English sēar; see sear 1
Origin of sere2
First recorded in 1915–20; back formation from series
Explanation
You can describe something that is dried up, withered, or without moisture with the adjective sere. The desert climate, for example, is sere, as is your skin after a day in the wind. Sere’s shriveled and withered meaning crops up in things like Shakespeare's Macbeth ("My way of life Is fall’n into the sere, the yellow leaf;" 5:III), or in archaic references to Sere-month (August), but it isn't frequently used in modern conversation. The variant spelling of sere is sear, which has other meanings that see more modern use.
Vocabulary lists containing sere
Words from Shakespearean Insults
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Beowulf: A New Telling
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The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But when firefighters struggled to contain a 50-by-50-foot brush fire on a sere hillside in Laguna Niguel on Wednesday afternoon, officials grew concerned.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 13, 2022
A sere moonscape of rock, sand and mountains, portions of the park lie 282 feet below sea level, the lowest point in North America.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 10, 2021
Some of the best of what was left of what had been a rolling inland sea of sere, sage green.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 7, 2021
Winter is the best time for walking, May insists in this wide-ranging rumination on the sere, dark, cold season.
From Slate ● Dec. 16, 2020
But he looked at her with some strange remorse, and he saw that she had grown thin and her skin was sere and yellow.
From "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
