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Sere has not wandered very far from its origins—it derives from the Old English word sear, meaning "dry," which traces back to the same ancient root that gave Old High German, Greek, and Lithuanian words for drying out and withering. Several nouns sere also exist; one is an obscure nominal form of the adjective, but the others are etymologically unrelated to the adjective or to one another. The most common of the nouns is a 20th-century coinage from the Latin word series (meaning "series"), which refers to a series of ecological communities formed in ecological succession.
Examples of sere in a Sentence
Peter Marks, Washington Post, 6 Dec. 2023
Seidensticker pointed out Kawabata’s ties to Japanese poetry: This was prose of a sere, haiku-like delicacy and suggestiveness, with much implied and little specified.
—Brad Leithauser, WSJ, 10 Nov. 2023
Early hominids may have stood up and gotten naked as a way to cope with heat stress on the sere African savanna.
—Tim Folger, Discover Magazine, 11 Nov. 2019
But the western region accounts for a small fraction of the land, which unfolds east from the Cascades in expanses of sere high desert, lush pasture and thick forest.
—Scott Wilson, Anchorage Daily News, 15 Sep. 2023
As the sere image above suggests, the shortgrass prairie of eastern Colorado is ordinarily a dry place.
—Tom Yulsman, Discover Magazine, 11 Apr. 2013
Just to the east of the Sierra Nevada lies the sere landscape of the Basin and Range province, characterized by linear mountains and valleys arranged roughly in parallel.
—Tom Yulsman, Discover Magazine, 24 Apr. 2018
Here was a tense dialectic that energized his entire career—a tugging between a world of civic engagement, where all pronouncements are dubious, and a sere realm of a lovely, but unsustainable, disembodiment.
—Brad Leithauser, WSJ, 12 Aug. 2022
Thirst becomes the overarching metaphor for human desire in a sere landscape.
—Los Angeles Times, 2 Aug. 2022
Philip Ellis, Men's Health, 12 May 2023
The new drama seres, City on Fire will be available to stream starting Thursday, May 11.
—Josie Howell | Jhowell@al.com, al, 11 May 2023
Thankyou for the apportuny sere th tte of Rhode land nd Hs get communities.
—Alexa Gagosz, BostonGlobe.com, 11 Jan. 2023
Or crystalline and sere and cool—as explorers to Mars might discover?
—Brad Leithauser, WSJ, 5 Oct. 2022
Short stories are an ideal gateway to Mr. MacLaverty’s oeuvre, delivering in a few pages a burst of the sere prose and perception found in his novels.
—Brenda Cronin, WSJ, 14 Jan. 2022
As part of the innovative pick-up deal, the seres will also be broadcast on the CBS later in 2020, following its run on Pop.
—Will Thorne, chicagotribune.com, 27 June 2019
Photo: Scott London Last year’s event drew about 75,000 people—and 317 works of art—to the sere, chalky landscape.
—Brenda Cronin, WSJ, 24 Mar. 2018
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'sere.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near sere
Cite this Entry
“Sere.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sere. Accessed 31 Oct. 2024.
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