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Sear   /sɪr/   Listen
Sear

adjective
1.
(used especially of vegetation) having lost all moisture.  Synonyms: dried-up, sere, shriveled, shrivelled, withered.  "The desert was edged with sere vegetation" , "Shriveled leaves on the unwatered seedlings" , "Withered vines"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Sear" Quotes from Famous Books



... fresh? Methinks I could remind thee here and yonder Of what we did together—could abuse thee For having had one secret, e'en to me - Cheat me of one adventure—yes, I could, If I saw thee alone, and not myself. Thanks that so much of this fond sweet illusion At least is true, that in my sear of life An Assad blossoms for ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

... needs not God," said Ferne, and laughed. "I am a traitor, am I not? Then do to me what was done to Thomas Doughty. Only hasten, for dead men wait to clutch me, and your looks do sear my ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... Helen never would have tired riding through those oak groves, brown and sear and yellow, with leaves ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey

... Scott, by vain conceit perchance, On public taste to foist thy stale romance; Though Murray with his Miller may combine, To yield thy Muse just HALF-A-CROWN A LINE? No! when the sons of song descend to trade, Their bays are sear, their former laurels fade. Let such forego the poet's sacred name, Who rack their brains for lucre, not for fame: Low may they sink to merited contempt, And scorn remunerate the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... clean as that of the ants, or the birds, or the bees; the burrowing animals are much neater. He does little for himself, nothing for others, the sensuous life he leads poisoning his nature. Virtue and vice have no special meaning to him. There is no sear and yellow leaf at Penang, or anywhere on the coast of the Straits. Fruits and flowers are perennial: if a leaf falls, another springs into life on the vacant stem; if fruit is plucked, a blossom follows and another cluster ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... letter of the English alphabet on the way. O, Lord John Russell! think of this. Of this Englishman's son, placed by his mother, scarcely weaned, on a high, cold stone, barefooted, before the anvil; there to harden, sear, and blister his young hands by heating and hammering ragged nailrods, for the sustenance those breasts can no longer supply! Lord John! look at those nails, as they lie hissing on the block. Know you their meaning, use and language? Please your lordship, let me tell ...
— Jemmy Stubbins, or The Nailer Boy - Illustrations Of The Law Of Kindness • Unknown Author

... apartments in Tejon Avenue, two squares from the capitol, and Kent had called no oftener than good breeding prescribed. Yet their accessibility, and his unconquerable desire to sear his wound in the flame that had caused it, were constant temptations, and he was battling with them for the hundredth time on the Friday night when he sat in the House gallery listening to a perfunctory debate which concerned itself with a bill ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... life Is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf; And that which should accompany old age, As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; but, in their stead, Curses, not loud, but deep, mouth-honor, breath, Which the poor heart would fain deny, ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various

... Rustem, the renowned, Quitting the field of battle? Where is now The raging tiger, the victorious chief? Was it from thee the Demons shrunk in terror, And did thy burning sword sear out their hearts? What has become of all thy valour now? Where is thy matchless mace, and why art thou, The roaring lion, turned into a fox, An animal of slyness, not of courage, Losing thy noble character ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... about the blue diamond. He knew that she wore it on a chain, hidden in her dress. The certainty of this shot through brain and body like forked lightning and seemed to sear her flesh. She was afraid. She could not tell yet of what she was afraid, but when she could disentangle her twisted thoughts one from another ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... nature. She would never consent to explain things; she herself knew not what was the matter with her; but she felt ill whenever the doctor drew too near to her mother; and would press her hands violently to her bosom. Her torment seemed to sear her very heart, and furious passion choked her and made her cheeks turn pale. Nor could she place any restraint on herself; she imagined every one unjust, grew stiff and haughty, and deigned no reply when she was charged with being very ill-tempered. Helene, trembling with ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... of St. Nairn she shall not.' She lifted her maimed hand involuntarily, and, at the sear of pain, her eyes closed. Immediately Culpepper was beside her knees, supporting her with his arms and muttering sounds ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... is not growing like a tree In bulk doth make man better be; Or standing long, an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear. A lily of a day Is fairer far in May, Although it fall and die that night— It was the plant and flower of light. In small proportions we just beauties see; And in short measures life ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education

... hope was left me, and each tedious hour Was counted as it brought his coming near; And joyfully I watched each fading flower; Each tree, whose shadowy boughs grew red and sear; And hailed sad Autumn, favourite of the year. At length my time of sorrow came—'twas over, A beauteous boy was brought me, doubly dear, For all the Tears that promise caused to hover Round him—'twas past—I claimed a husband ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various

... found elk beds, where the great stags had been lying, to flee at our approach. But we did not see one. The bigness of this slope impressed me. We rode miles and miles, and every park was surrounded by heavy timber. At length we got into a burned district where the tall dead spruces stood sear and ghastly, and the ground was so thickly strewn with fallen trees that we had difficulty in threading a way through them. Patches of aspen grew on the hillside, still fresh and green despite this frosty morning. Here we ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... that he couldn't get out of the cabin. There was only a little hole in the door; to crawl through it, inch by inch as he had entered, would subject him to the full fury of the flames. Oh, they would sear and destroy him quickly if he tried to creep through them! All night they had been mocking him with their cheerful crackle; they had only been waiting for this chance to torture him. He had to spring high ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall

... of delicate flowers springing to light through dewy moss, of buds bursting, and he saw the glancing of myriad tiny leaves upon the grey old trees. With precisely the same sense of sweetness came the vision of days when autumn rain was falling, and the red and sear leaf, the nut, the pine-cone and the flower-seed were dropping into the cold wet earth. Was life in the spring, and death in the autumn? Was the power and love of God not resting in the damp fallen things that lay rotting ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall

... complained of a pain in her left breast, whereon there appeared at first a hard knob no bigger than a small pea; it increased in a little time very much, was very hard, and sometimes would look very red; she took advice of surgeons, had oils, sear-cloths, plates of lead, and what not: in 1623 it grew very big, and spread all over her breast; then for many weeks poultices were applied to it, which in continuance of time broke the skin, and then abundance of watery thin stuff came from it, but nothing ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly

... a little sear, he felt somewhat keenly of late. She had a dreary, draggled look at breakfast, after the children had cried at night,—and the nights when Mrs. Sharpe's children did not cry were like angels' visits. It was perhaps the more noticeable, because Miss Dallas had a peculiar color and coolness ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... die. Yet it may be that it shall be never quite forgotten; that in after days a word, a song, the fragrance of a flower, will bring to thee dim memories of what is gone. But my love must last, to burn and sear since it may not bless me, for it is not a child's love, beloved! We had no right to happiness, thou and I. But wherefore not? And who decreed it so? I may not have one last look from thee, one touch of thy tender hands,—O little hands that have clung to mine!—and ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... are known and named. Fetu is the word used to designate all heavenly bodies except the sun and moon. Venus is called the morning and evening star. Mars is the Matamemea, or the star with the sear-leafed face. The Pleiades are called Lii or Mataalii, eyes of chiefs. The belt of Orion is the amonga, or burden carried on a pole across the shoulders. The milky way is ao lele, ao to'a, and the aniva. Ao lele, means flying ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner

... like a sear leaf, the messengers of death (Yama) have come near to thee; thou standest at the door of thy departure, and thou hast no provision for ...
— The Dhammapada • Unknown

... of the bridal, of Arthur, and even of Anna's dress, her manner evincing that the old wound had healed and nothing but a sear remained to tell where it had been. And so the days went on beneath the sunny Italian skies, until one glorious night, when Thornton spoke his mind, alluding to the time when each loved another, expressing himself as glad that, in his case, the matter had ended as it did, and then ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes

... smote the leaves, and the trees of Whilomville were panoplied in crimson and yellow. The winds grew stronger, and in the melancholy purple of the nights the home shine of a window became a finer thing. The little boys, watching the sear and sorrowful leaves drifting down from the maples, dreamed of the near time when they could heap bushels in the streets and burn them during ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane

... we have heard that she has gone, and we know, from watching what happened before, just what will happen now. How day by day they will sear that child's soul with red-hot irons, till it does not feel or care any more. And a child's seared soul is ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael

... indignant blood rise to my cheek at this libel upon the Home of the Oppressed, where all men are free and equal—perfectly equal—perfectly free and perfectly equal. I despised this Chinese-speaking Spaniard for his mean slander of the land that was sheltering and feeding him. I sorely wanted to sear his eyes with that sentence from the great and good American Declaration of Independence which we have copied in letters of gold in China and keep hung up over our family altars and in our temples—I mean the one about all men being created free ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... beautiful!" said a voice near me. I turned, and one whose days were in the "sear and yellow ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur

... not only concede to the admirers of this tragedy, but acknowledge the further advantages of preparing the audience for the most surprising series of wry faces, proflated mouths, and lunatic gestures that were ever "launched" on an audience to "sear the ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... a bullet had grazed her neck, and the sight of the narrow sear filled Weldon's mind with a dull, unreasoning rage. Brutal to aim at the plucky mounts who bore their riders so gallantly into the flight where all defensive power was denied themselves! He paused long enough to pat the firm gray neck, to feel the answering ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... hearts were glad, and shouts went up, And praise to Israel's mighty God, As the sear hills grew bright with flowers, And verdure clothed the ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... shadow. He had been on his way to her, his mind made up that he would not sleep without telling her of his love. The sight of Garcia had halted him. Garcia's singing to her had awakened a fierce anger within him; his flesh had twitched and something had seemed to sear hot through it as Garcia's lips ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... animated and gay; certainly the music was inspiring enough to have made an Egyptian mummy get out of his sarcophagus and caper about. I danced with a German Durchlaucht, who, though far in the sear and yellow leaf, danced like a school-boy, standing for hours with his arm around my waist before venturing (he could only start when the tune commenced), counting one— two—three under his breath, which made me, his partner, feel like a perfect fool. When at last he made up his mind to start nothing ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone

... is slower, methinks—I have watched good flesh sear and shrivel ere now—ha! by Saint Giles, 'tis an evil subject; let us rather think upon ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... companion, I am neither above nor below any living being in your heart; I am alone there. Clemence, repeat to me those sweet things of the spirit you have so often said to me; do not blame me; comfort me, I am so unhappy. I have an odious suspicion on my conscience, and you have nothing in your heart to sear it. My beloved, tell me, could I stay there beside you? Could two heads united as ours have been lie on the same pillow when one was suffering and the other tranquil? What are you thinking of?" he cried abruptly, observing that Clemence was anxious, confused, and seemed ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac

... this nicely the fat must not be burned. The eggs should be dropped in one by one, allowing them plenty of room to spread out. Cook slowly and with a spoon baste the yolks with the hot fat until they sear, being careful not to cook the egg too hard. These eggs are very nice served on thin, dry toast, or one may be placed ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris

... give me neither love nor tears, Nor dreams that sear the night with fire, Go lightly on your pilgrimage ...
— Rivers to the Sea • Sara Teasdale

... Had you none to pull on with your courtesies, But he that must be mine, and wrong my Daughter? By all the gods, all these, and all the Pages, And all the Court shall hoot thee through the Court, Fling rotten Oranges, make ribald Rimes, And sear thy name with Candles upon walls: Do you laugh ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... to tilth, and woodlands brown and sear, The falling leaf and crispy pool proclaim the waning year; And sounds of sylvan pastime ring through our valley wide, Vicissitude itself is ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... It began to sear the skin long before the sun struck the normal atmosphere. Hanson could feel that he was being baked alive. The blood in his arteries seemed to bubble and boil, though that must have been an illusion. But he could see his skin rise ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey

... minstrelsy, farewell! The rose is colourless and withering fast, Sweet Philomel her song forgets to swell, And Summer's rich variety is past! The sear leaves wander, and the hoar of age Gathers her trophy for the dying year, And following in her noiseless pilgrimage, Waters her couch with many a pearly tear. Yet there is one unchanging friend who stays To cheer the passage into Winter's gloom— The redbreast chants ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 392, Saturday, October 3, 1829. • Various

... the crest of a rise covered with single mimosa-trees, dotted about in a park-like fashion, and beyond this was a stretch of open plain running down to a dry pan, or water-hole, which covered about an acre of ground, and was densely clothed with reeds, now in the sear and yellow leaf. From the farther edge of this pan the ground sloped up again to a great cleft, or nullah, which had been cut out by the action of the water, and was pretty thickly sprinkled with bush, among which grew some large trees, I ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various

... parents and husbands from wives, violates the divine institutions of families, and by hard and hopeless toil makes existence a burden," "eats out the heart of nations and tends every year more and more to sear the popular conscience and impair ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke

... girl, who spent that night in a straight-backed chair at the bedside, asleep. Always she was sitting there with eyes wide and brimming with suffering and fear, and a wakeful, troubled heart into which love had flashed like a meteor and which it threatened, now, to sear like a lightning bolt. It seemed to her that life had gone aimlessly, uneventfully on until without warning or preparation it had burst into a glory of discovery and in the same breath ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... effectual means of annoyance than larger bodies. As all the warriors were converts of the Canadian missions, and as prisoners were an article of value, cases of torture were not very common; though now and then, as at Exeter, they would roast some poor wretch alive, or bite off his fingers and sear the stumps with red-hot ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman

... similar to that of Ruth and Boaz. His Ruth he calls "Lavinia," and his Boaz "Pal[e]mon." He then describes partridge and pheasant shooting, hare and fox hunting, all of which he condemns. After luxuriating in the orchard and vineyard, he speaks of the emigration of birds, the falling of the sear and yellow leaf, and concludes with a eulogy of country life. The whole ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... burn'd the star of sadness As behind the beams I peer'd; All was woe that seem'd but gladness Ere my gaze with truth was sear'd; Cacodaemons, mir'd with madness, Through ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... young days shaded? Are schoolbooks and inkpots thy fate? Too soon is thy fair face faded By working at Euclid so late. Doth French thy bright spirit wither, Or Grammar thy happiness sear? Then, child of misfortune, come hither, I'll weep ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... together now over many a nameless grave, and Northern youth and Southern maid pull daisy petals beside the sunken cannon ball; but the ancient scar ploughed deep, and old records like this have heat enough in them yet to sear the nerves of us who trembled, maybe, in the womb, when those black lists of the wounded trembled ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... those dreams, those longings, he had been able to endure; to-day reality had suddenly become more insistent and more stern: the Angel's flaming sword would sear his soul after this, if he lingered any longer by the enchanted gates: and thus had the semblance of happiness yielded at last to ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... The dews were so heavy that the fields glistened like cloth of silver and there were such heaps of rustling leaves in the hollows of many-stemmed woods to run crisply through. The Birch Path was a canopy of yellow and the ferns were sear and brown all along it. There was a tang in the very air that inspired the hearts of small maidens tripping, unlike snails, swiftly and willingly to school; and it WAS jolly to be back again at the little brown desk beside ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... one) are frequent, and unrivalled for a display of the "savoir vivre," her ladyship can always draw on the gratitude of her guests for that homage to hospitality which she must cease to expect to her charms, "now in the sear and yellow leaf:"—she is a M-nn- rs-"verbum sal." Speaking of M-nn-ra, where is the portly John (the Regent's double, as he was called some few years since), and the amiable duchess, who bestowed her hand ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... kin To joy and heart's delight, Low Pleasure's opposite, Choice food of sanctity And medicine of sin, Angel, whom even they that will pursue Pleasure with hell's whole gust Find that they must Perversely woo, My lips, thy live coal touching, speak thee true. Thou sear'st my flesh, O Pain, But brand'st for arduous peace my languid brain, And bright'nest my dull view, Till I, for blessing, blessing give again, And my roused spirit is Another fire of bliss, Wherein I learn Feelingly how the pangful, purging fire Shall furiously burn ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore

... dreaded evil that must come; Of small avail, door locked or window barred, To keep the pestilence from hearth and home. The dreadful pestilence that walks by night, Stepping o'er barriers, an unwelcome guest, Came, and with scorching touch to sear and blight, Drew my fair child into her loathsome breast; Nothing had ever parted us till then, O child! when shall I ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke

... would go to the bed, to her! She would take her by the arm and say: "Yes it's me—this is for your life!" And over her face, her throat, her skin, over everything about her that was youthful and attractive and that invited love, Germinie watched the vitriol sear and seam and burn and hiss, transforming her into a horrible object that filled Germinie's heart to overflowing with joy! The bottle was empty, and she laughed! And, in her frightful dream, her body also dreaming, ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt



Words linked to "Sear" :   preparation, combust, dry, cookery, heat up, swinge, heat, dry out, flora, sizzle, burn, parch, vegetation, botany, cooking



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