SEAR • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Sear

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noun

Sear n. The catch in a gunlock by which the hammer is held cocked or half cocked.

Sear spring, the spring which causes the sear to catch in the notches by which the hammer is held.

verb

Sear v. t. (past & past part. seared; pres. part. searing)

To wither; to dry up.

To burn (the surface of) to dryness and hardness; to cauterize; to expose to a degree of heat such as changes the color or the hardness and texture of the surface; to scorch; to make callous; as, to sear the skin or flesh. Also used figuratively. "I'm seared with burning steel." "It was in vain that the amiable divine tried to give salutary pain to that seared conscience." "The discipline of war, being a discipline in destruction of life, is a discipline in callousness. Whatever sympathies exist are seared." Note: Sear is allied to scorch in signification; but it is applied primarily to animal flesh, and has special reference to the effect of heat in marking the surface hard. Scorch is applied to flesh, cloth, or any other substance, and has no reference to the effect of hardness.

To sear up, to close by searing. "Cherish veins of good humor, and sear up those of ill."

adjective

Sere, Sear adj. Dry; withered; no longer green; applied to leaves. "I have lived long enough; my way of life Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf."

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Etymology of 'Sear'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Sear" Quotes from Famous Books

... the one doubtful pass: where would he shoot me? Shoot me he would—chest, shoulder, arm, head; I could not escape, did not hope to escape. Yet no matter where his ball ploughed (and I poignantly felt it enter and sear me) my final bullet would end the match. Also, I argued my rights in the business; argued them before my father and mother, before the ...

— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... her bedside I realized that she had prophesied only too truthfully. There would be times in my life when I would believe Dicky only. But I was also afraid there would be others when her words would come back to me with intensified power to sear and scar. ...

— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... 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

... growing like a tree In bulk, doth make man better be, Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall at last a log, dry, bald, and sear. A lily of a day Is fairer ...

— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner

... life Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf; And that which should accompany old age, As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; but in their stead Curses, not loud, but deep, mouth-honour, breath Which the poor heart would ...

— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

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