sere
/siə/
Học thuậtThân thiện
Definition
- Adjective:
- Dried up, withered: Describes something, especially vegetation, that has become completely dry, shriveled, and lifeless due to a lack of moisture.
- Arid, parched: Can describe a landscape or condition that is extremely dry and barren.
Usage Examples
- Adjective:
- The sere leaves crumbled to dust at a touch.
- After months of drought, the fields were sere and brown.
- They hiked across the sere landscape of the plateau.
Advanced Usage
- Literary/Descriptive Use: "Sere" is often used in literary, poetic, or descriptive contexts to evoke a vivid image of dryness and desolation.
- The knight rode through the sere and yellow wood.
- Extended Metaphor: Can be used metaphorically to describe something that is lifeless, exhausted, or devoid of vitality.
- His sere imagination could no longer produce new ideas.
Variants and Related Words
- Sear (verb): To burn or scorch the surface of something; to wither or dry up. (Note: "Sere" and "sear" are related but have distinct primary uses; "sere" is almost exclusively an adjective.)
- Sered (adjective): A less common variant form.
- Sereness (noun): The state or quality of being sere.
Synonyms
- Withered
- Desiccated
- Parched
- Arid
- Shriveled
- Dried-up
Antonyms
- Lush
- Verdant
- Green
- Moist
- Hydrated
Related Phrases & Idioms
- (As) sere as dust: An emphatic phrase highlighting extreme dryness.
- The ancient riverbed was as sere as dust.
- Sere and barren: A common collocation emphasizing both dryness and lack of fertility.
- The land had become sere and barren, unable to support life.
Adjective
- (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