Definition

1. Verb (transitive):

   • To burn or scorch the surface of something: To cause superficial burning that discolors or damages the outer layer.
   • To wither or dry out: To cause something, especially vegetation, to become dry, shriveled, or withered, often through exposure to heat.
   • To brand or mark with a hot instrument: To burn a mark onto a surface.
   • To make callous or unfeeling: To harden emotionally or morally.

2. Adjective:

   • Dried up, withered: Describes something, particularly plants, that has lost all moisture and is dry and shriveled.

Usage Examples

• Verb:

  • The chef will sear the steak to lock in the juices. (This shows the cooking application of superficial burning.)
  • The intense summer heat can sear the grass, turning it brown. (This illustrates causing vegetation to wither.)
  • The tragic event seared the memory into her mind. (This demonstrates a figurative use for making a lasting, painful impression.)

• Adjective:

  • They hiked through a landscape of sear vegetation. (This describes dry, withered plants.)

Advanced Usage

• "To sear something into memory/consciousness": To fix something, typically a traumatic or powerful image/experience, indelibly in one's mind.

  • The photograph of the disaster was seared into the public's consciousness.

• Culinary Technique: In cooking, "to sear" specifically means to brown the surface of food quickly at a high temperature to develop flavor.

  • For the best flavor, sear the meat before slow-cooking it.

Variants and Related Words

• Sere (Adjective): An alternative spelling for the adjective form, meaning dry or withered. It is more common in literary or ecological contexts (e.g., "sere vegetation").
• Searing (Adjective): Extremely hot or intense; emotionally painful.
  • The searing heat of the desert.
  • He felt searing regret.

Synonyms

• Verb (to burn): Scorch, singe, char, blacken.
• Verb (to dry): Parch, wither, shrivel, desiccate.
• Adjective: Withered, parched, desiccated, arid.

Related Phrasal Verbs/Constructions

• Sear off: This is sometimes used in technical or cooking contexts to mean to seal or burn the surface completely.
  • Sear off the cut ends of the rope to prevent fraying.

Related Idioms

• The sear and yellow leaf: A literary idiom from Shakespeare (), symbolizing old age and decay.
  • He was in the sear and yellow leaf of his life.

Adjective

1. (used especially of vegetation) having lost all moisture
   • dried-up grass
   • the desert was edged with sere vegetation
   • shriveled leaves on the unwatered seedlings
   • withered vines

Verb

1. cause to wither or parch from exposure to heat
   • The sun parched the earth
2. burn slightly and superficially so as to affect color
   • The cook blackened the chicken breast
   • The fire charred the ceiling above the mantelpiece
   • the flames scorched the ceiling
3. become superficially burned
   • my eyebrows singed when I bent over the flames
4. make very hot and dry
   • The heat scorched the countryside