Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Pressed or crowded together, especially in rows.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Crowded; compacted in regular lines.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Crowded; compact; dense; pressed together.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective crowded together in rows

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective (especially of rows as of troops or mountains) pressed together

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Past participle of obsolete serry, to close ranks, from French serré, past participle of serrer, to crowd, fasten; see sear.]

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Examples

  • Down all its length the stiff waves stood in serried rows, and its crevices and water-worn caverns were a-bellow with unseen strife.

    CHAPTER 25 2010

  • When you fly over the icy peaks of the Hindu Kush, which march in serried ranks toward the Himalayas, dividing Central Asia from the Indian subcontinent, you get a sense of the scale of the problem: Osama bin Laden may be hiding somewhere out there.

    The Long Hunt for Osama 2004

  • When you fly over the icy peaks of the Hindu Kush, which march in serried ranks toward the Himalayas, dividing Central Asia from the Indian subcontinent, you get a sense of the scale of the problem: Osama bin Laden may be hiding somewhere out there.

    The Long Hunt for Osama 2004

  • At the back of the ordinary man's mind when he uses the word "defense" is, I think, a picture of his army standing in serried ranks to prevent the incursion of foreigners, as Belgium stood for the defense of her soil against the German incursion.

    Sir Norman Angell - Nobel Lecture 1933

  • The straw-coloured piles of lumber that are piling up in serried ranks represent a vast outlay of money and industry, and supply a commodity that is invaluable to a growing country.

    Janey Canuck in the West Emily Ferguson 1910

  • Guns and pistols being looked to, we rode on in serried ranks, expecting every moment to hear a bullet whizz over our heads.

    Life in Mexico, During a Residence of Two Years in That Country Frances Erskine Inglis 1843

  • The pedants, by the way, are always careful to point out that one may correctly speak of the first two when the serried is a series of twos.

    No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003

  • The pedants, by the way, are always careful to point out that one may correctly speak of the first two when the serried is a series of twos.

    No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003

  • The pedants, by the way, are always careful to point out that one may correctly speak of the first two when the serried is a series of twos.

    No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003

  • The pedants, by the way, are always careful to point out that one may correctly speak of the first two when the serried is a series of twos.

    No Uncertain Terms William Safire 2003

Comments

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  • "'In this meeting, five of the members are my friends... Of the others none to my knowledge is hostile... This is really not going to be a serried interrogation.'"

    --P. O'Brian, The Yellow Admiral, 245

    March 19, 2008

  • "'Crabs! They've got crabs!' the cry runs through the serried ranks.

    The 'Theys' were the crew of Monkey 2, it was the first mass outbreak of crabs in the Battery, how proud we were of them, at last the label dirty bastards could be added to the Battery honours. The only other mass outbreak of crabs was Gunner Neat in Bexhill. He told the MO he got them off a girl in Blackpool. 'I brought them south for the sun, sir,' he said."

    - Spike Milligan, 'Mussolini: My Part In His Downfall'.

    April 25, 2009