serried
pronunciation
How to pronounce serried in British English:
UK [ˈserid]
How to pronounce serried in American English:
US [ˈsɛrid]
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- Adjective:
- (especially of rows as of troops or mountains) pressed together
Word Origin
- serried
- serried: [17] The phrase serried ranks is first recorded in William Wilkie’s Epigoniad 1757, but it was clearly inspired by Milton’s ‘Nor serv’d it to relax their serried files’ in Paradise Lost 1667. It means ‘rows crowded close together’, and serried is the past participle of a now obsolete verb serry ‘press together’. This was borrowed from serré, the past participle of Old French serrer ‘close’, which went back via Vulgar Latin *serrāre to Latin sērāre, a derivative of the noun sera ‘lock, bolt’.
- serried (adj.)
- "pressed close together," 1667 (in "Paradise Lost"), probably a past participle adjective from serry "to press close together" (1580s), a military term, from Middle French serre "close, compact" (12c.), past participle of serrer "press close, fasten," from Vulgar Latin *serrare "to bolt, lock up," from Latin serare, from sera "a bolt, bar, cross-bar," perhaps from PIE *ser- (3) "to line up" (see series). Modern use is due to the popularity of Scott, who used it with phalanx.
Example
- 1. The serried red plumes of the guards .
- 2. The soldiers marched in serried ranks towards the depot .
- 3. There are several basic characteridtics of the modern battle , such as rapid process , exact strike , and serried technology and so on .
- 4. The results indicated that the possible physical mechanism of how the earthquake influenced the flood mainly was that the serried major earthquake strengthened troposphere atmosphere activity in certain region , stabilized the main rain belt and the main rainstorm center , and increased the water vapor content .
- 5. Above the bush the trees stood in serried ranks .