SEAR • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • 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

... had been intolerably hot. The sun's rays seemed to sear the earth, like heated irons, and the air that lay on the burning sand was broken by wavy lines, such as one sees indicate the radiation ...

— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... me already," sighed the unhappy girl, "and it is that which makes me feel so bad. When I think of it there comes over me just such a scorching heat as used to sear up my brain in the bad fever. The people said I was crazed, but I was not half so mad then ...

— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie

... wholly. In the mean time the process is completed. Macbeth changes under our eye, the milk of human kindness is converted to gall; he has supped full of horrors, and his May of life is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf; whilst we, the fools of amazement, are insensible to the shifting of place and the lapse of time, and, till the curtain drops, never once wake to the truth of things, or recognize the laws of existence.—On such an occasion, a fellow, like Rymer, waking from his trance, ...

— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... lowered his eyes respectfully lest the Marquise should read his doubts in them. The energy of her outburst had grieved him. He had seen the self that lurked beneath so many forms, and despaired of softening a heart which affliction seemed to sear. The divine Sower's seed could not take root in such a soil, and His gentle voice was drowned by the clamorous outcry of self-pity. Yet the good man returned again and again with an apostle's earnest persistence, brought back by a hope of leading so noble and proud ...

— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac

... 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 the ...

— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

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