serrate

American  

[ser-ayt, -it, ser-ayt, suh-rayt] / ˈsɛr eɪt, -ɪt, ˈsɛr eɪt, səˈreɪt /

adjective

1. Chiefly Biology. notched on the edge like a saw.

   a serrate leaf.

2. Numismatics. (of a coin) having a grooved edge.

3. serrated.

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verb (used with object)

serrated, serrating

1. to make serrate or serrated.

   He serrated the knives so they would cut meat easily.

serrate British  

adjective

1. (of leaves) having a margin of forward pointing teeth

2. having a notched or sawlike edge

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verb

1. (tr) to make serrate

Other Word Forms

• subserrate
  adjective
• unserrate
  adjective

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Etymology

Origin of serrate

1590–1600; < Latin serrātus, equivalent to serr ( a ) saw + -ātus -ate ¹

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

serrate serrated serrating

The color pink gets its name from flowers in the genus Dianthus, commonly known as carnations or pinks, a reference to the serrate, or “pinked,” edges of the delicate, sweetly fragrant flowers.

From Seattle Times ● May 14, 2022

Even in their day, these reference-point songs weren’t quite serrate, or scabrous — they were the globular middle.

From New York Times ● Jul. 21, 2021

Or like a jagged, serrate viola through Shostakovich’s last, 15th, String Quartet – its abrasive intorsion like a barbed needle that speaks of desolation, exclusion from closure or repose.

From The Guardian ● Aug. 26, 2018

A Victorian field guide, for example, describes Agrimonia in rather uncompromising terms: "Herbs with stipulate, pinnate, serrate leaves and terminal bracteate spine-like racemes of small yellow flowers."

From The Guardian ● May 31, 2012

P. palústris, L. Leaves lanceolate, sharply serrate, the lower pectinate when under water; fruit sharply angled.—Wet swamps, N. Eng. to Fla., west to Minn. and Tex.

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Asa Gray

The album is loaded with Anthrax trademarks — serrated, crunchy riffs, soaring lead vocals, bludgeoning beats, and scorching guitar — but there are also galactic noise effects, angular song structures and atypical chord configurations.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2026

Worse still, it's at odds with the serrated edges of Abrams' lyrics.

From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026

The same company has revived it at its Broadway house, the Hayes Theater, in a crisply staged and terrifically acted production directed by Trip Cullman that keeps the play’s serrated edges as cutting as ever.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 7, 2026

The study also suggests that serrated polyps may develop into cancer more quickly than adenomas.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 13, 2026

It was deep, low, and raw—a voice like woodsmoke, serrated blades, and boots breaking through snow.

From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor

When they got back in studio post-pandemic, they wanted to shake up their longstanding approach to tracking live instruments themselves, then serrating them digitally.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 1, 2024

Another Palisades pitcher prepares a knuckleball by serrating stripes on the bottom, so that it looks almost like a basketball.

From The New Yorker ● Aug. 31, 2018

Leagues beyond the shadowy hills serrating the purple horizon, it was lost like a bad dream yielding to the light of day.

From The Triumph of John Kars A Story of the Yukon by Ridgwell Cullum

From time to time the surface of the absorbent is renewed by serrating it with a comb-like instrument.

From Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 by Various

The speed of the work was dependent upon the operative, as he determined by his lever movement the instant at which the automatic serrating hammer should be released.

From Psychology and Industrial Efficiency by Hugo Münsterberg

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