sear

Etymology 1

From Middle English sere, seer, seere, from Old English sēar, sīere (“dry, sere, sear, withered, barren”), from Proto-West Germanic *sauʀ(ī), from Proto-Germanic *sauzaz (“dry”), from Proto-Indo-European *sh₂ews- (“dry, parched”) (also reconstructed as *h₂sews-). Cognate with Dutch zoor (“dry, rough”), Low German soor (“dry”), German sohr (“parched, dried up”), dialectal Norwegian søyr (“the desiccation and death of a tree”), Lithuanian saũsas (“dry”), Homeric Ancient Greek αὖος (aûos, “dry”). Doublet of sere and sare.

adj

1. Dry; withered, especially of vegetation.

Etymology 2

From Middle English seren, seeren, from Old English sēarian (“to become sere, to grow sear, wither, pine away”), from Proto-West Germanic *sauʀēn (“to dry out, become dry”); compare also Proto-Germanic *sauzijaną (“to make dry”). Related to Old High German sōrēn (“to wither, wilt”). See Etymology 1 for more cognates. The use in firearms terminology may relate to French serrer (“to grip”).

verb

1. (transitive) To char, scorch, or burn the surface of (something) with a hot instrument.
   I will sear the skin from your flesh. You will die a thousand deaths! 2001, Ben Stivers, Wrath of Magic, page 123
   When you drop the tuna onto the pan, the outside will sear and cook quickly while leaving as much of the center as possible in its raw state. 2010, Jeff Potter, Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food, page 180
   I often will sear steaks, move them to a cooler side, then use the hot side to grill or sauté vegetables, make a sauce in a cast-iron skillet, or grill some fruit for dessert while the steak finishes. 2016, Melissa Cookston, Smokin' Hot in the South, page 12
2. To wither; to dry up.
   The drought was so severe as to sear the grass and the leaves of maple trees which had grown well for two years, standing in sward land by the roadside, and yet the corn, within ten feet, on the subsoiled land, did not roll once in the whole season, even at mid-day, and there was scarcely another piece in the neighborhood which escaped serious injury. 1852 May, Henry F. French, “Some Remarks on Subsoil Plowing”, in The New England Farmer, volume 4, number 5, page 231
   The spring and summer of 1936 brought to the Great Plains one of those terrible periodic droughts that sear the crops and convert the “short-grass country” into a desert. 1971, Chapters From the American Experience, page 277
   The early morning sun had begun to sear the grass. 2014, Bernard N. Lee, Jr., Michele Barand, A Look Back in Time, page 50
   She might just as easily have been a goddess of the harvest, since the ancient Greeks sowed in the fall and reaped in the spring before the dry heat of summer could sear the crops in the fields. 2018, Michael Furie, Peg Aloi, JD Hortwort, Llewellyn's 2019 Sabbats Almanac
3. (transitive, figurative) To make callous or insensible.
4. (transitive, figurative) To mark permanently, as if by burning.
   The events of that day were seared into her memory.

noun

1. A scar produced by searing
2. Part of a gun that retards the hammer until the trigger is pulled.