serirn.
/səˈrɪə/, U.S. /səˈrɪ(ə)r/ Physical Geography.
In the Sahara Desert, esp. in Libya and Tunisia: a flat area of desert strewn with rounded pebbles and boulders. Cf. reg n.2 Frequently attributive.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > land > landscape > wild or uncultivated land > [noun] > barren land or desert > stony
serir1843
reg1904
1843 Penny Cycl. XXV. 252/1 Other tracts, called sereer, are gravelly plains from which the sand has been swept by the winds.
1886 Encycl. Brit. XXI. 149/2 Nearly all the rest of the Sahara consists in the main of undulating surfaces of rock.., vast tracts of water-worn pebbles (serir), and regions of sandy dunes.
1925 W. F. Hume Geol. Egypt I. iv. 88 The same undulating ‘serir’ pebble-strewn country extends to the west of the Nile Valley, forming low undulations which are nevertheless sufficiently developed for whole camel parties to become rapidly lost to sight.
1942 O. D. von Engeln Geomorphol. xviii. 411 In the Libyan Sahara similar surface sheets, there composed of coarse rounded pebbles, a pebble armor, are known as serir; in the western Sahara smaller rounded pebbles, tightly packed, constitute the reg.
1974 Encycl. Brit. Micropædia III. 486/2 Evaporation of capillary water may cause the precipitation of..salts that cement the pebbles together to form a desert conglomerate. In the western Sahara such a surface is known as a reg.., whereas in the eastern Sahara it is called a serir.
2011 Remote Sensing of Environment 115 1014/2 Serir surfaces prevail around the Bodélé, lacustrine sediments within, and sands are ubiquitous throughout.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2013; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
<
n.1843