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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



... fire seemed to sear his arm near his shoulder. Starr knew the feeling well enough. He staggered and went down headlong in a clump of greasewood, and at the same instant the report of a rifle came clearly from the high pinnacle at the head of ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... and sun and shower, Expand the embryo blossom—and it bursts Its narrow cerements, lifts its blushing head, Rejoicing in the light and dew of heaven. But if the canker-worm lies coil'd around The heart o' the bud, the summer sun and dew Visit in vain the sear'd and blighted flower. ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... 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 ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

... lay drenched in mist as the steamer bearing the representative of The Review drew in at the dock. The whole region was sodden and rain-soaked, verdant with a lush growth. No summer sun shone here, to bake sprouting leaves or sear tender grasses. Beneath the sheltering firs a blanket of moss extended over hill and vale, knee-deep and treacherous to the foot. The mountain crests were white, and down every gully streamed water from the melting snows. The country ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach

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

... may be broiled in a hot frying pan in a similar way. Wipe and trim the steak, place in a smoking hot frying pan and sear both sides. Reduce the heat and turn the steak occasionally (about every 2 minutes) until it is cooked, allowing 8 minutes for a rare steak, 10 minutes for medium cooked steak, and 12 minutes for well done steak, for a ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... 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 ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore

... skies they were ashen and sober, The streets they were dirty and drear, It was the dark month of October, In that most immemorial year. Like the skies, I was perfectly sober, But my thoughts they were palsied and sear, Yes, my thoughts ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton

... thou to-night behold, Here, through the moonlight on this English grass, The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild? Dost thou again peruse With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame? Dost thou once more assay Thy flight, and feel come over thee, Poor fugitive, the feathery change Once more, and once more seem to make resound With love and ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... and daughter were always together, and the days of late summer and then of autumn went by sweetly enough. And when the last roses were gone and the honeysuckle vines had ceased to send forth their breath of fragrance, and leaves turned sear, and the winds blew harsh from the sea, Dolly and Mrs. Copley made themselves all the snugger in the cottage; and knitting and reading was carried on in the glow of a good fire that filled all their little room with brightness. They were ready ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... to exterminate the weeds at once. And beware of remaining longer in sin. The deeper you sink, the more bitter will be your restoration. Why continue to sear you conscience, and sow the seeds of keener remorse? No matter how painful it may be, break with sin at once. Severe operations are often necessary, for the skilful surgeon knows that the disease cannot ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody

... 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 the rabbit's tread; The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various

... her suspicious and silent 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 ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... watch and ward Against the 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

... 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

... went mad with horror, and fled From that terrible, strangling death, That seemed to sear both body and soul ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke

... potatoes—the tattered flag of the regiment proudly waving over our heads, and not a man amongst us whose warm heart did not bound behind a Waterloo medal. Well—well! I am now—alas, that I should say it—somewhat in the "sear and yellow;" and I confess, after the experience of some moments of high, triumphant feeling, that I never before felt within me, the same animating, spirit-filling glow of delight, as rose within my heart that day, as I marched at the head ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever

... occasions did he find the 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 into a ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... answered: "Master, you have dipped pen in your heart, your phrases sear. Ruthless, unflinching, you have stripped naked your soul and set it here. Have I not loved you well and true? See! between us the shadows drift; This bit of blood and tears means You — oh, let me have it, a parting ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service

... death—but exiled, worse than death— And scions legitimate live to claim Their birthright, oh! how heavy is that crown (Though loose it fits), which well the wearer knows, A people's breath may blow from of his brow, Sear'd by the burning weight, it yet would guard, E'n ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner

... big with Christian brats, Upon a scaffold in the Palace plac'd Had first their dugges sear'd off, their wombes ript up, About their miscreant heads their first borne Sonnes Tost as a Sacrifice to Jupiter, On his great day and ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various

... the plunge of the dirk was actual; he felt it sear his side like a hot iron, and caught the wrist that held it only in time to check a second blow. His fingers slipped, his head swam; a moment more, and a Montaiglon was dead very far from his pleasant land of France, in a phantom ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... the barbarities which accompanied those rituals, yet we must allow that these barbarities show how intensely the early people felt the solemnity and importance of the whole matter; and we must allow too that the barbarities did sear and burn themselves into rude and ignorant minds with the sense of the NEED of Sacrifice, and with a result perhaps which could not have been compassed in any ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter

... complaining of the small vexations and unvaried sameness of her daily life, she little dreamed how near at hand was the time when Effie's words were to prove true. Before the frost came to hush the pleasant murmur of the brook, or the snow had hidden alike the turf seat and the sear leaves of the birch-tree beside it, Christie was looking back over the stolen moments passed there on summer afternoons, with feelings with which were mingled wonder and pain and self-reproach. For the shadow of a coming sorrow was over their household. Day by day they seemed to be drawing nearer ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson

... rushed to the spot; but, ah! what a scene was there to blast their sight and sear the brain of his sister, and indeed of all who could look upon it. The young bridegroom smote down when his foot was on the very threshold of happiness, and by the ...
— Lha Dhu; Or, The Dark Day - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... broiled, because broiling does not help to render their fibers more tender. In applying this cooking process, which is particularly suitable for tender portions of meat and for young fowl, the food should be exposed to intense heat at first in order to sear all surfaces quickly and thus retain the juices. At the beginning of the cooking, the article that is being broiled should be turned often; then, as soon as the outside is browned, the heat should be reduced if possible, as with a gas stove, and the article allowed ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... laugh. Her resistance fired him. He caught her fiercely to him. He covered her face, her throat, her arms, her hands, with kisses that burned her through and through, seeming to sear ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... 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

... crying aloud, she held out to her sons her fettered hands. And then, fully aroused, hearing the piteous cries, the rattle of chains, seeing the beloved face, full of woe, conscious of every bitter, burning tear (which as it fell, seemed to sear their own hearts), struggling to reach, to succor her, they found themselves bound and ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... uninterruptedly on one side of his space suit for as long as five minutes. Despite the insulation inside, that was too long. He turned quickly to expose another part of himself to the sunlight. He knew abstractedly that the metal underfoot would sear bare flesh that touched it. A few yards away, in the shadow, the metal of the hull would be cold enough to freeze hydrogen. But here it was fiercely hot. It would melt ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster

... Shall win man's praise and woman's love, Shall be a wisdom that we set above All other skills and gifts to culture dear, 225 A virtue round whose forehead we enwreathe Laurels that with a living passion breathe When other crowns grow, while we twine them, sear. What brings us thronging these high rites to pay, And seal these hours the noblest of our year, 230 Save that our brothers found ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... clod! In crypts profaned the moon at midnight peers; The owl upon the Sphinx hoots in her ears, And scant and sear the desert grasses nod Where once the armies of Assyria trod, With younger sunlight splendid on the spears; The lichens cling the closer with the years, And seal the eyelids ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... trigger finger gradually, slowly and steadily increasing the pressure on the trigger, while the aim is being perfected; continue the gradual increase of pressure so that when the aim has become exact the additional pressure required to release the point of the sear can be given almost insensibly and without causing any deflection of the rifle. Continue the aim a moment after the release of the firing pin, observe if any change has been made in the direction of the line of sight, ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... world; you will be trodden down by the masses in this conflict, upon which you enter so eagerly. Do you not know that 'literati' means literally the branded? The lettered slave! Oh! if not for my sake, at least for your own, reconsider before the hot irons sear your brow; and hide it here, my love; keep it white and pure and unfurrowed here, in the arms that will never weary of sheltering and clasping you close and safe from the burning brand of fame. Literati! A bondage worse than Roman slavery! Help me to make a proper use ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... there is a breath of winter in M. de Mauleon's style, and an odour of fallen leaves. Not that his diction wants vigour; on the contrary, it is crisp with hoar-frost. But the sentiments conveyed by the diction are those of a nature sear and withered. And it is in this combination of brisk words and decayed feelings that his writing represents the talk and mind of Paris. He and Paris are always fault-finding: fault-finding is the attribute ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... 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 fain deny, and ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... the language of Margaret Fuller, we can not but overcome all obstacles, outlive all opposition: "Give me Truth. Cheat me by no illusion. Oh, the granting of this prayer is sometimes terrible; I walk over the burning plowshares and they sear my feet—yet nothing ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... Bergen, and they led it to perfection; there was not a hitch anywhere. Every one was 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 ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone

... disabilities like that sought to be removed, inflict a wound upon the feelings of those whom they reach, intolerable to good and generous minds, worse than persecution, than even death itself, how do you apply it? Why you propose to sear this brand high upon the forehead, and deep into the heart of your very prince, while you render the scar more visible, and the insult more poignant, by making him the solitary individual, whose hereditary rank must be held and transmitted by the disgraceful tenure which you ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... Sat down to Supper of Fried Oysters &, at 11 o'clock went to Capt Sear's and Lod'g. Arose at 5 o'clock, went to the House first mentioned, Breakfasted, Dress'd and went to Meeting, where I heard a ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... 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 feign deny, ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit

... they blow away, With fiendish joy, the ashes from my soul, Lest the last embers of the fiery brand The fatal heritage of Pelops' house, Should there be quenched. Must then the fire for aye, Deliberately kindled and supplied With hellish sulphur, sear my tortured soul! ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... Only the figure of the archangel was visible in that agony of blackness, bright as burnished silver, bright as moonlight. Its right arm extended its sword towards the crouching King, and the blade glowed like a blade of white fire. Like a flash of lightning it seemed to leap to Robert's breast and sear his heart; he would have screamed with the pain, but his voice seemed dead within him, and all around him thunder rolled, horrible as the noise of ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... clime, Mock with their smile the wrinkled front of time We stain thy flowers,—they blossom o'er the dead; We rend thy bosom, and it gives us bread; O'er the red field that trampling strife has torn, Waves the green plumage of thy tasselled corn; Our maddening conflicts sear thy fairest plain, Still thy soft answer is the growing grain. Yet, O our Mother, while uncounted charms Steal round our hearts in thine embracing arms, Let not our virtues in thy love decay, And thy fond sweetness ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... line of head and shoulder, the color flooding cheek and neck, and most dangerous of all, the challenging gray eyes. His teeth snapped to, and his hand closed over her wrist. He pulled, she yielded. He felt her other hand laid on his. The touch seemed to sear his flesh. ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... He has the crime of prodigality, and the wretchedness of parsimony. If a man is killed in a duel, he is killed as many a one has been killed; but it is a sad thing for a man to lie down and die; to bleed to death, because he has not fortitude enough to sear the wound, or even to stitch it up.' I cannot but pause a moment to admire the fecundity of fancy, and choice of language, which in this instance, and, indeed, on almost all occasions, he displayed. It was well observed ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... lifted face star-strong, went one who sang Lost verses from my youth's gold canticle. Out of the void dark came my face and hers One vivid moment—then the street was there; Bloat shapes and mean eyes blotted the sear dusk; And in the curtained window of a house Whence sin reeked on the night, a shameful head Was silhouetted black as Satan's face Against eternal fires. I stumbled on Down the dark slope that reaches riverward, Stretching ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody

... wandering ghoul and the evil children of the night. Here, not the ill-omened owl, nor the blind bat, nor the unclean worm shall come. And thou shouldst have neither will nor power to nip the flowers of spring, nor sear the green herbs of summer. Is it not, dark mother of the evil winds,—is it not our immemorial office to tend the grave of Innocence, and keep fresh the flowers round ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... and shear my hair like that of the parish fool, whom I have so richly resembled—let them bid the monastery or the grave yawn for me, let them bring red hot basins to sear my eyes—axe or aconite—whatever they will, but Orleans shall not break his plighted faith to my daughter, or marry another while ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... He was standing between her and the sharp tongues of those waiting people, already licking hungrily in their awakened suspicion, ready to sear her fair name like flames. But there was no gratitude in her heart that moment, no quick lifting of thankfulness nor understanding of the great peril which Joe had assumed for her. There was only relief, blessed, easing, cool relief. He ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... small parties of warriors left the prairies and ascended the Mount; at which times the scouts would hide in the fissures of the rocks, or lying by the side of some long prostrate tree, cover themselves with the sear and yellow leaf, and again leave their hiding places when ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous

... Rests with Thee alone. Cherubim are bending, Low before Thy throne. From Thy Heaven hear me! Weak and soiled am I, Wounds and sorrows sear me, Fainting I draw nigh. Is there then another way? Sorrow's rising hills may they Not reach up to heaven, pray? ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson

... more, O ye Laurels, and once more Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never-sear, I com to pluck your Berries harsh and crude, And with forc'd fingers rude, Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear, Compels me to disturb your season due: For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime Young Lycidas, and ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... now I mark thy angry wave Rush headlong to the stormy sea; Wildly the blasts of winter rave, Sad rustling through the leafless tree Loose on its spray the alder leaf Hangs wavering, trembling, sear and brow And dark thy eddies whirl beneath, And white thy foam comes ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... 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 ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various

... the leaf, and the cauld winds are blawin', The wee birds, a' sangless, are dowie and wae; The green leaf is sear, an' the brown leaf is fa'in', Wan Nature ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... bored fearfully sometimes these last weeks doing fancy-work with mother, and driving about shut up in a horrid, close carriage, while Vere has been gadding about and enjoying herself; and then the moment she comes home I am nowhere beside her! Injustices like this sear the heart, and make one ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... 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 touched ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... cold in their wooden shoes; and the robin already sang in the twigs of the sear sweetbrier; but she had the brave sweet faith which nothing kills, and she did not doubt—oh! no, she did not doubt, she was ...
— Bebee • Ouida

... . Aldis Wright must be right about 'sear' {135a}—French serre he says. What a pity that Spedding has not employed some of the forty years he has lost in washing his Blackamoor in helping an Edition of Shakespeare, though not in the way of these minute archaeologic Questions! I never heard ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald

... exchange noble thoughts of the future for the small coin of our ideas of life. He might, like them, have walked with his feet on earth and his head among the clouds, but he preferred to sit at his ease and sear with his kisses the lips of more than one tender, fresh and sweet woman. Like Death, wherever he passed, he devoured all without scruple, demanding a passionate, Oriental love and easily won pleasure. Loving only woman in women, his soul found ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... intense! The glare from the tribunes opposite seemed to sear the eyes, and from below there rose to the nostrils that awful sickening stench ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... 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, her feet began to move. She walked unconsciously down the ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... implacable, brand with fire, Sear out the soul of the bestial sire! Impotent render the insolent boor— Dead to the love and the life ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... blood, and I—I am the cause of all; but surely you exert yourself too much, more than can be requisite? These night damps, this sickly and chilling air, heavy with the rank vapours of the coming morning, are not suited to thoughts and toils which are alone sufficient to sear your mind and exhaust your strength. Come, my own love, to bed; and yet first come and look upon our child, how sound she sleeps! I have leaned over her for the last hour, and tried to fancy it was you whom ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the dazzling glitter of the streets, the sun blinded him, accentuating the scorching pain of unshed tears; the very pavements seemed to rise up and sear him with their memories. Here in this very street Blake and he had strolled and smoked on many a night, wending homeward from the play or the opera, laughing, jesting, arguing as they paced arm-in-arm ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... twit me with days when I had an Ideal, And saw the sear future through spectacles green? Then find me some charm, while I look round and see all These fat friends of forty, shall keep me nineteen; Should we go on pining for chaplets of laurel Who've paid a perruquier for mending our thatch, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... cannot, will not, take, nor would you take it willingly. It would sear your heart and spirit, it would spoil all that makes you what you are. Jasmine, once for all I am your lover and your friend. I give you love and I give you friendship—whatever comes; always that, always friendship. Tempus ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... where the one calm little season of his manhood had been spent, where happiness and peace might have been his lifelong portion had he remained. He set his face towards Italy and the storm and stress before him, and in the train of King Louis he set out upon the turbulent meteoric course that was to sear so deep and indelible a brand across ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... great happiness, now shivered as though the day had turned cloudy and cold. But she was still Helen Longstreet, her pride an essential portion of the fibre of her being. Because she was hurt, because suddenly she hated Sanchia Murray with a hatred which seemed to sear her heart like a hot iron, she commanded her smile and hid all traces of agitation ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory

... drain—amethyst, pearl, silver, rose, and smoke-blue. 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 ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... injuries, You all look pale with guilt, but I will dy Your cheeks with blushes, if in your sear'd veins There yet remain so much of honest blood To make the colour; first to ye my Lord, The Father of this Bride, whom you have sent ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont

... of "the Ivy never sear" (Milton) recommended it to the Romans to be joined with the Bay ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

... 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? ...
— Jemmy Stubbins, or The Nailer Boy - Illustrations Of The Law Of Kindness • Unknown Author

... down from the high and level prairie. Here Glenn paused to determine what course he should take. The sun shone brightly on the interminable expanse before him, and not a breeze ruffled the long dry grass around, nor disturbed the few sear leaves that yet clung to the diminutive clusters of bushes scattered at long intervals over the prairie. It was a delightful scene. From the high position of our hero, he could distinguish objects miles distant on the plain; and if the landscape was ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... encouraged by hot fomentations and poultices. The orifice must be kept open, and should it be disposed to heal we must again introduce some of the agents above described. A favored treatment with many, and it is probably the best, is to plunge a red-hot iron to the bottom of the incision and thoroughly sear all parts of the walls of the abscess. This is to be repeated after the first slough has taken place if the walls ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... him as the divining-rod of Aaron, blooming ever afresh with magic flowers. Now that the flame of pain and passion burned it up, and left a bare sear brittle ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... of blasphemy than prayer. But when he shook above the crowd Its kindled points, he spoke aloud:— 'Woe to the wretch who fails to rear At this dread sign the ready spear! For, as the flames this symbol sear, His home, the refuge of his fear, A kindred fate shall know; Far o'er its roof the volumed flame Clan-Alpine's vengeance shall proclaim, While maids and matrons on his name Shall call down wretchedness and shame, And infamy and woe.' Then rose the cry of females, shrill As goshawk's ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... bring it with me. The home-truths about me on it were nothing to the home-truths about you. It would sear your soul to read them," said the Honourable John Ruffin ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson

... October, sunny and still, with a purple haze resting on the distant woodlands across the river. A warm odour of ripe apples floated across the old peach orchard, for a few rare pippin-trees stood in its midst, flaunting the last of their fruitage from gnarled limbs, or hiding it in the sear grass underneath. ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston

... a tiny glassful of Curacao or sugar and water, the Gallic "knight of the round table" will sit for hours in utter content, reading the papers, talking, smoking, or clicking the inoffensive domino. Intoxication is almost unknown in the better cafes; their patrons may sear their oesophagi with hot Chartreuse, derange the nerves with Absinthe, stimulate themselves hourly with their little cups of black coffee and brandy; but they never get drunk. Frenchmen are temperate, even in their intemperance. An English gin-mill and probably an American bar ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... 'mid his aides-de-camp, busily bent O'er the daily reports, in his well-order'd tent There sits a French General—bronzed by the sun And sear'd by the sands of Algeria. One Who forth from the wars of the wild Kabylee Had strangely and rapidly risen to be The idol, the darling, the dream and the star Of the younger French chivalry: daring in war, And wary in council. He enter'd, indeed, Late in life (and discarding ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith

... sent it to her as she is bathing in the sea at Bognor Rocks; but I must with infinite gratitude give you a brief account of myself-a very poor one indeed must I give. Condemned as a cripple to my couch for the rest of my days I doubt I am. Though perfectly healed, and even without a sear, my leg is so weakened that I have not recovered the least use of it, nor can move cross my chamber unless lifted up and held by two servants. This constitutes me totally a prisoner. But why should not I be so? What business had I to live to the brink of seventy-nine? And ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... thou revere, or praise, or trust Some clod like those that here we spurn; Some thing that sprang like thee from dust, And shall like thee to dust return? Dost thou rate statesmen, heroes, wits, At one sear leaf, or wandering feather? Behold the black, damp narrow pits, Where they ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... within him which, if he could find a vent for them, might lead him on to fame and fortune. The exasperating raging bitterness of this, the grudging envy with which he looks at those more fortunate than himself, whose intellectual equipment he despises, these are the things which sear the heart. ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... is the sin of the "star-bright apostate," and she plunges with her husband into the abyss of guilt, to procure for "all their days and nights sole sovereign sway and masterdom." She revels, she luxuriates in her dream of power. She reaches at the golden diadem, which is to sear her brain; she perils life and soul for its attainment, with an enthusiasm as perfect, a faith as settled, as that of the martyr, who sees at the stake, heaven and its crowns of glory opening ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... Experiment 51 (b), one can understand why seared meat tastes good. Dry heat tends to develop flavor. Hence it is desirable to sear meat not only to prevent waste of its juices, but to make it tasty. After meat is seared, it is usually necessary to reduce the temperature of cooking in order to cook the interior ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer

... Nest Gwynn, the admired of all beholders, the light-hearted girl, beloved by her mother. Little circumstances connected with those early days, forgotten since the very time when they occurred, came back to her mind in her waking hours. She had a sear on the palm of her left hand, occasioned by the fall of a branch of a tree, when she was a child; it had not pained her since the first two days after the accident; but now it began to hurt her slightly; and clear in her ears was the crackling sound of the treacherous, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... high public functions before he was made a bishop; St. Germain of Autun was ever on the move, now in Brittany, now at Paris, now at Arles, to crush heresy, to threaten a barbarian potentate, or to sear the conscience and, if need were, ban the person ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... another time the heavens are as brass, and the clouds come and go with mockery of unfulfilled promises of rain, the fierce midsummer sun pours its beams upon the sands, and blasts heated in the furnace of the desert sear the vegetation; and the fruits, which in more congenial seasons are subsistence and luxury, shrivel before the eyes of famishing men. A river rages and destroys the adjacent valley with its flood. A mountain bursts forth ...
— Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians • John Wesley Powell

... before her, his fine religious zeal wiped out by fear of that knife in her weak woman's hand. Rapidly to-night was she coming into real knowledge of this Castilian gentleman, whom with pride she had taken for her lover. It was a knowledge that was to sear her presently with self-loathing and self-contempt. But for the moment her only consideration was that, as a direct result of her own wantonness, her father stood in mortal peril. If he should perish through the deletion of this creature, she would ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... conscience grows weaker, and, after a while, it cannot serve us at all, for Satan has taken possession of it. The evil one can do as much mischief with a man's conscience as he can with his heart. He can 'sear it with a hot iron.' (I Tim. 4: 2.) He can 'defile' it. (Titus 1: 15.) He can kill it. (Eph. 4: 17-19.) And how can a seared, defiled, dead conscience help him to shun temptation and sin? Many a man, honest in his dealings with ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold

... peculiar intensity. His boys were away at a preparatory school and were looking forward to college. He centred on his daughter, a future hope, and on his wife, a present reality and triumph. Over her, in particular, he bent like a flame, a bright flame that dazzled and did not yet sear. He was able, by this time, to coalesce with the general tradition in which she had been brought up—or at least with the newer tradition to which she had adjusted herself; and he was able to bring to bear a personal power the application of which she had never experienced. ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller

... my dear Lady of Dunmoe, tell when I can be with you; go I will before autumn runs away with all your leaves, but I am afraid I must let autumn turn them of a sober hue, though I will not let it go to the sear and yellow. In plain prose I am tied down ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... the youngest and only compassionate among them, whose burial-robe she had since made. At the final hour, when she was so soon to fling aside the burning letter, it had strangely become the centre of more remark and excitement, and was thus made to sear her breast more painfully, than at any time since the first ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... giant in stature," was the answer, "with a swarthy skin, black eyes that burn in their sockets, and a coal-black beard that falls below his waist. He has a sear upon his left cheek, and he has lost two fingers upon the left hand. He speaks in a voice like rolling waves, and in a language that is half English ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... combining with the love of gain, and sense of self-interest, and amalgamated with the crude, wild, and indigested fanatical opinions which this man had gathered among the crazy sectaries of Germany; or how far the doctrines of fatalism, which he had embraced so decidedly, sear the human conscience, by representing our actions as the result ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... eyes blazed with hatred, but he made no sound or sign. He knew that if he as much as lifted his hand the men would kill him. To him they were the law, searching for a fugitive. The welt across his face burned like the sear of fire—the cowardly brand of hatred on the impassive face of primitive fortitude! This because he had fed a hungry ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... four livers from chicken or other fowl and dredge well with flour. Fry one minced onion in one tablespoon of fat until light brown. Put in the liver and shake the pan over the fire to sear all sides. Add one-half teaspoon of salt, one-eighth teaspoon of paprika and one-half cup of strong soup stock. Allow it to boil up once. Add one tablespoon claret or sherry and serve ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum

... they rode, and glared into his eyes as if to sear them with his own. Nick heard his poniard grating in its sheath, and shut his eyes so that he might not see the master-player's horrid stare; for the opening and shutting, opening and shutting, of the blue lids made ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... pour in! What?—Pour in Hope! The soul looks out through the coming years, Blinded by doubts, and blinded by tears, Sear'd with the iron of tyrant fears:— Is there a break in Life's gloomy sky? Can the heart reach it before it die? The path is weary, the desert wide, And Sorrow stalks by the pilgrim's side— Oh for a draught of Hope's crystal tide To cheer the parch'd and fainting one, Until his toilsome ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels

... 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 ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... whose cares had hitherto kept her healthier and happier than themselves. The mother groaned with anguish; she measured what these were about to suffer, by all she began to suffer herself; and the sight of them seemed to sear the burning eyes which could no longer weep. She sat down on the floor by Alice; her head fell against the wall; she caught at a little rosary which hung near her, and pressed it in her mouth, the comparative coolness of the beads giving her a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various

... cart, which went to and fro twice weekly. In short, Shorne Mills was out of the world, and will remain so until the Railway Fiend flaps his coal-black wings over it and drops, with red-hot feet, upon it to sear its beauty and destroy its solitude. It had got its name from a flour and timber mill which had once flourished halfway down the coombe or valley; but the wheels were now silent, the mills were falling to pieces, and the silver stream served ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... There was a sound in his ears 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

... in chorus with the voices of the woman and her companions. Stumpy stepped out from the grove path with but four men behind him; and they were in sore plight. Stumpy himself dangled an idly swinging sleeve that was stained dark-red to the shoulder. A red sear across his nose and cheek rendered him a demoniacal figure through the powder, smoke and sweat. And his mates were tattered and cut, their shirts bore red splashes to a man; their grimed faces and fiery eyes held the passions of blooded men who see ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle



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



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