Word of the Day : February 6, 2021

sere \SEER\ adjective

Definition

1 : being dried and withered

2 archaic : threadbare

Did You Know?

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.

Aired February 6, 2021

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