serialadj.n.
/ˈsɪərɪəl/, U.S. /ˈsɪriəl/ A. adj.
1. Chiefly Biology. Esp. of parts of an organism: arranged in a straight line or row, or in a longitudinal succession; (also) of or relating to such an arrangement. Cf. seriate adj.
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the world > space > relative position > arrangement or fact of being arranged > arrangement in (a) row(s) or line(s > [adjective] > of the parts of something
serial1823
1823 Q. Jrnl. Sci. & Arts Jan. 318 These singular ribs have a very different direction from that of the serial teeth of the hinge [Fr. des dents sériales de la charnière], and cannot be taken for teeth.
1845 R. Owen Odontography I. 153 In the upper jaw, the teeth..form a single and regular series along the lower two-thirds. These latter, which may be termed the serial teeth, are from fifteen to eighteen in number.
1870 H. Spencer Princ. Psychol. (ed. 2) I. i. ii. 16 They preserve a serial arrangement: their aggregation is little more than that of close linear succession.
1872 G. M. Humphry Observ. Myology 9 The transverse septa, a serial continuation of those in the tail, are directed from the median line above.
1873 St. G. Mivart Lessons Elem. Anat. i. 10 Serial symmetry may be much less and much more developed than we find it to be in man.
1895 Q. Jrnl. Microsc. 37 445 It is not without importance to find in the typically metameric Annelids regular serial markings following definite laws in each portion of the body.
1931 Trans. Amer. Entomol. Soc. 57 229 The elytra almost completely devoid of impressed lines or serial punctures.
1987 Coleopterists Bull. 41 313 The serial punctation of the elytra varies from lacking to a faintly suggested row or two of scattered punctures.
2001 Biol. Bull. 200 2/1 This..study of morphologically distinct structures provides insight into the contribution of a serial arrangement of joints to the mechanical properties of multi-jointed beams.
2.
a. Of a literary publication, esp. a story: issued in successive instalments (as in a magazine or newspaper). Later also: (of a film drama, radio or television programme, etc.) shown or broadcast in regular (e.g. weekly, daily, etc.) episodes; forming a series. Cf. sense B. 1.
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society > communication > printing > publishing > [adjective] > published in serial form
serial1835
serialized1902
society > leisure > the arts > performance arts > cinematography > a film > type of film > [adjective] > other types
costumed1851
foreign language1904
first run1910
Keystone1912
photodramatic1914
serial1915
coming of age1919
edge-of-your-seat1922
psychodramatic1927
omnibus1928
straight1936
low-budget1937
no-budget1937
screwball1937
Ealing1939
blockbusting1943
private eye1946
film noir1952
white telephone1952
portmanteau1953
uncut1953
anthology1955
three-D1955
Hammer1958
noir1958
co-production1959
kitchen sink1959
kidult1960
docudrama1961
cinéma vérité1963
maudit1963
filmi1965
indie1968
triple-X1969
XXX1969
drama-documentary1970
cheapie1973
gross-out1973
high concept1973
chopsocky1974
hard R1974
buddy movie1975
sci-fi1977
mondo1979
hack-and-slash1981
microbudget1981
hack-and-slay1982
slice-and-dice1982
fly on the wall1983
psychotronic1983
noirish1985
Mad Max1986
stoner1987
bonkbusting1993
straight to DVD1997
1835 Court Jrnl. 14 Nov. 784/2 (advt.) Never was there a period more fertile than the present in the production of serial publications.
1859 New Amer. Cycl. III. 741/1 His last work, a serial novel, entitled ‘The Gordian Knot’, began to be published..in 1857.
1867 E. Yates Black Sheep III. vi. 123 She..had set herself to read the serial story.
1915 N.-Y. Tribune 14 Oct. 7/4 A serial movie story that threatens to run eight instalments.
1933 B.B.C. Year-bk. 1934 213 Serial plays were a popular innovation: and their exciting episodes seemed to have appealed to..as many grown-ups as youngsters.
1956 L. Bogart Age of Television iv. 83 The Kansas study..notes the predilection of women for serial dramas and homemaking programs.
1979 H. Hood Reservoir Ravine i. 16 A most corkingly pretty girl..trying to remember the title of a magazine serial story she had read at some time past.
2005 Time Out N.Y. 5 May 162/2 A bisexual Buddhist vampire..and the ghosts of three murdered lesbian nuns are among the dramatis personae of Blair Fell's tragic-camp serial comedy.
b. Of, relating to, or engaged in this form of publishing, broadcasting, etc.
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1838 Atlas 17 Nov. 729/3 Produced at intervals for serial publication, the writer was necessarily obliged to make each part more or less striking.
1848 Satirist 23 Sept. 403/2 The serial novelists in the magazines seem to be at a loss for titles to their precious productions.
1919 Daily Leader (Grand Rapids, Wisconsin) 17 Mar. 2/1 He will ask Albert E. Smith and Cyrus Townsend Brady, Vitagraph's serial authors, to write a special episode..exclusively featuring Wilhelm.
1940 Manch. Guardian 6 Apr. 10/7 Thackeray's ‘Vanity Fair’ has been adapted for serial broadcasting.
1957 J. Butt & K. Tillotson Dickens at Work i. 22 These passages..were removed only because of the fortuitous demands of serial publication.
1975 Los Angeles Times 5 Apr. ii. 3/1 The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau rescues the notion of adventure from the cliches of serial television.
2011 M. W. Turner in C. Dever & L. Niles Cambr. Compan. A. Trollope i. 9 The serialization of Framley Parsonage in Cornhill..led to his being one of the most sought-after serial novelists of the next decade.
3. More generally: belonging to, forming part of, or consisting of a series, in respect either of sequence in time or of conceptual order (cf. series n. 2); occurring in or forming a regular sequence or succession. Also: of or relating to the arrangement of something in this way.
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the world > relative properties > order > order, sequence, or succession > [adjective] > belonging to a series
concatenary1836
serial1836
seriary1851
catenary1852
catenarian1863
the world > relative properties > order > order, sequence, or succession > [adjective] > belonging to a series > forming a series
serial1836
the world > time > relative time > the future or time to come > succession or following in time > [adjective]
subaltern1579
subalternal1588
succeeding1602
consecutive1611
sequenta1616
subalternate1649
successional1685
seriatim1813
serial2006
1836 C. S. Rafinesque Amer. Nations I. ii. 60 In the Antilles the dates are quite loose, and difficult to reduce even to a serial order.
1844 North Amer. & Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia) 14 June Cole's four great serial paintings, illustrative of the four stages of life, are also in the exhibition.
1851 Western Hort. Rev. May 381/2 Appended hereto will be found a serial list of all the specimens of wine received.
1864 Realm 6 July 8 The last performances of all the great serial concerts.
1907 School Work Apr. 43/2 In teaching grammar it is not enough simply to give a list of topics in serial order.
1962 E. B. Hunt Concept Learning vi. 238 It is possible to make a serial analysis of each step in the model's concept-learning process.
2006 Chicago Tribune (Midwest ed.) 12 Mar. i. 2/2 This [sc. Sicily] is an island the size of Vermont that has endured serial conquests.
4. Biology. Designating a method of propagating or maintaining cultures of microorganisms or cells by repeatedly transferring them into new culture media, new hosts, etc.; of, relating to, or involved in such a method.
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1882 Lancet 28 Jan. 153/1 Much more investigation, however, is necessary before the alleged criterion of serial inoculation can be accepted as conclusive.
1904 Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts & Sci. 40 277 In investigating the persistence of the (+) and (−) characters in the individual strains, the writer has begun a number of serial cultures.
1943 Ann. Missouri Bot. Garden 30 177 Figure 3 is record of variations in size of colonies [of baker's yeast] after serial plating on CM, MDY, and Pr agar.
1970 L. T. Morton Med. Bibliogr. (ed. 3) 609 Laveran and Mesnil discovered that trypanosomes could be maintained indefinitely in rats and mice by serial passage.
2003 Biotechnol. Progress 19 238 During serial passaging in cell culture, FP mutants were rapidly selected.
5. Education and Psychology. Of, relating to, or designating the practice or method of learning words, numbers, etc., as a series so that the items can be recalled in their original order, or of testing a person's ability to recall items in this way. See also serial position n. at Compounds 1.
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1903 E. N. Henderson in Psychol. Rev. Monogr. Suppl. 5 No. 6. 13 Most school work where mechanical memory alone is involved does not require the serial learning of more new units than can be grappled in a single act of thought.
1911 Psychol. Monogr. No. 57. 13 This interpretation of the list or serial test is borne out by the following experiment.
1941 Jrnl. Appl. Psychol. 25 671 It is recognized..that, aside from serial testing, other variations of sequence are sometimes more advantageous than the order provided by the scale.
1979 A. C. Catania Learning x. 243 Another variety of intraverbal relation occurs in serial learning, the learning of a list of items in a particular order.
2007 W. Revelle in R. W. Robins et al. Handbk. Res. Methods Personality Psychol. iii. 50/1 The traditional list-learning task used a serial anticipation procedure.
6. Linguistics. Of, relating to, or designating a pattern of syntax in which the constituent words appear in series. Of a word: forming part of such a construction.Used esp. with reference to (in certain languages) the combination of verbs that share a subject and refer to different events, where these occur in series without subordination and without any words intervening (except, in some forms of the construction, the direct object of one of the verbs).
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the mind > language > linguistics > study of grammar > syntax or word order > syntactic relations > [adjective] > other specific relations
absolutec1400
rectc1400
included1837
exocentric1914
serial1933
1933 L. Bloomfield Lang. xii. 195 Endocentric constructions are of two kinds, co-ordinative (or serial) and subordinative (or attributive).
1963 Jrnl. Afr. Lang. 2 ii. 145 One..feature of the syntax of Twi and many other West African languages which seems to have escaped the notice of the grammar-writers is that the only possible position for an object pronoun is immediately after a verb... It is necessary to introduce an extra verb to take the extra object pronoun... This introduction of an extra verb in this way results in a serial verbal construction.
1975 Anthropol. Linguistics 17 222 Serial verbs in Lusoasian may be due to Pasar Malay rather than to African influence.
1994 S. Romaine Lang. in Society vi. 176 Serial verb constructions are chains of two or more verbs which have the same subject, e.g. im tek im fut kik me (Jamaican Creole) [he take foot kick me] ‘He kicked me’.
2009 B. Palmer Kokota Gram. vi. 175 Verbal predicates may consist of a single verb or a number of verbs in a serial construction.
7. Of a person: that repeatedly or regularly performs a specified activity; inveterate, persistent; spec. (of a criminal) repeatedly committing the same offence and typically following a similar characteristic behaviour pattern. Also (of an action or practice): performed by the same person on a regular or sequential basis; habitual, recurrent.Some of the more established uses of this type are treated separately. Recorded earliest in serial murderer n. at Compounds 1.Later uses in this sense are probably influenced by serial killer n., serial killing n.
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the world > action or operation > behaviour > customary or habitual mode of behaviour > [adjective] > inveterate (of habits or attitudes)
rootedc1400
infested1536
settled1556
inveterate1563
radicated1631
entrenched1642
radicate1656
ingrained1821
engrained1843
ingrain1852
chronic1861
infibred1879
serial1947
1947 S. Kracauer in Partisan Rev. 14 162 A criminal who has been caught in the act of killing a woman,..who now frantically denies that he is the pursued serial murderer.
1968 ETC. June 235 This revolution has created serious problems which express themselves among adults as an increase in serial polygamy, neighborhood ‘key clubs’, partner-swap parties, [etc.].
1980 Washington Post 29 Nov. d4/5 The program focused..on sexual homicides, mass murders and ‘serial’ murder—murders spaced out over a period of time.
1993 Independent on Sunday 22 Aug. (Weekend Suppl.) 9 ‘Active retirees’ become serial golfers, swimmers, gymnasts.
1996 Sunday Tel. 13 Oct. i. 28/1 The introduction of mandatory life sentences for serial violent offenders.
2001 Guardian 26 May (Saturday Review section) 2/6 A serial espouser of every reactionary cause.
2005 Sunday Tel. (Sydney) 20 Nov. (Queensland ed.) 39/3 Police fear a serial attacker, who has assaulted seven women on Sydney's northern beaches, may soon strike again.
8. Music. Of, relating to, or designating a method of composition based on a fixed sequence of tones, esp. the twelve tones of the chromatic scale, this sequence being subjected to various forms of transformation (inversion, reversal, etc.). Also in extended use, with reference to the organization of other musical components (such as duration, volume, etc.) on a similar basis. Cf. dodecaphonic adj., series n. 20.
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society > leisure > the arts > music > type of music > [adjective] > style by tonal organization > specific
enharmonian1603
enharmonic1603
harmonical1603
enharmoniac1681
polytonic1892
quarter-tonal1912
atonal1922
polytonal1923
pandiatonic1937
tritonal1944
serial1947
dodecaphonic1950
pantonal1958
1947 H. Searle in Penguin Music Mag. Dec. 22 Fartein Valen, whose Sonetto di Michelangelo..uses a serial technique derived from Berg.
1954 Tempo No. 34. 36/1 Mr. Searle cannot have known the Dirge when writing his book, but the evidence of the other ‘serial’ works..should have made him wary.
1963 Times Lit. Suppl. 3 May 320/4 Most of us reserve the term ‘series’ for an ordered succession of notes, as in the works of Schoenberg, but do not apply it to a collection of pitches such as are found in the works of Scriabine or Debussy. Mr. Perle extends ‘serial composition’ to both classes of music.
1982 Sunday Times 25 July 41/6 In his [sc. Eisler's] film music he made bold use of the technique of montage, juxtaposing elements from jazz, cabaret and serial polyphony.
2011 M. Broyles Beethoven in Amer. v. 133 Babbitt's own compositions, while extremely influential within the academy and among serial composers, had only a minor impact on the classical concert world.
9. Computing. Designating the transmission of signals one bit at a time; designating the performance of operations (such as data retrieval) in a set order one at a time; involving or relating to such operations; = sequential adj. 2b. Contrasted with parallel adj. 2c.serial data, interface, port: see Compounds 1. Universal Serial Bus: see the first element.
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1948 Gloss. Computer Terms (Mass. Inst. Technol. Servomechanisms Lab. Rep. R-138) 10 Serial programming, execution of complete arithmetic operations one at a time... Serial transmission, data transmission whereby one bit only is transmitted at any one time.
1953 U.S. Patent 2,639,859 1 One of the storage devices possesses large capacity but has a serial access, which implies a long access time.
1960 R. H. Gregory & R. L. Van Horn Automatic Data-processing Syst. viii. 248 Latency time for instructions stored in serial-access memories can increase program running time.
1989 J. Gatenby GCSE Computer Stud. iv. 70 Serial access requires all preceding files, or records, on a tape to be read in order to access an individual file or record.
2000 M. R. Williams in R. Rojas & U. Hashagen First Computers 7 Delay lines..are serial memory devices—the bits emerge from the delay line one at a time.
2007 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) A. 365 284 Both the laptop and the microcontroller communicate to the other boards through a serial bus.
B. n.
1.
a. A publication issued in a series of parts or instalments, esp. a periodical; (also) a novel, story, etc., published in this way, either on its own or as part of another publication.
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society > communication > printing > publishing > a publication > [noun] > a serial or part publication
serial1834
part1842
serialism1847
part-work1969
1834 Bristol Mercury 8 Nov. The number for November of the third division of this serial is entirely devoted to the article [on] birds.
1846 Athenæum 5 Dec. 1237/1 A fresh serial from the prolific pen of Dickens.
1852 Jrnl. Psychol. Med. & Mental Pathol. 5 461 The ‘Annales Medico-Psychologiques’, the ‘Annales d'Hygiene Publique et de Médecine Legale’, and other scientific serials.
1882 A. W. Ward Dickens ii. 20 When the popularity of the serial was once established, it grew with extraordinary rapidity.
1939 R. Chandler Let. 23 Aug. in Sel. Lett. (1987) 10 Good serials seldom make good novels.
1969 J. Gross Rise & Fall Man of Lett. (1973) iv. 115 It contains..four chapters of the current serial, The Eustace Diamonds.
1981 Amer. Libraries May 262/3 Duties: all original cataloging of monographs, serials, and non-book materials.
2010 M. M. Brunsdale Icons Myst. & Crime Detection 491 Simenon probably wrote The Case of Peter the Lett..in April 1930, and it was first published as a serial from July to October 1930.
b. A film drama shown in cinemas in sequential instalments. Cf. cliffhanger n. Now historical.
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society > leisure > the arts > performance arts > cinematography > a film > type of film > [noun] > other types
romantic comedy1748
epic1785
pre-release1871
foreign film1899
frivol1903
dramedy1905
film loop1906
first run1910
detective film1911
colour film1912
news film1912
topical1912
cinemicrograph1913
scenic1913
sport1913
newsreel1914
serial1914
sex comedy1915
war picture1915
telefilm1919
comic1920
true crime1923
art house1925
quickie1926
turkey1927
two-reeler1928
smellie1929
disaster film1930
musical1930
feelie1931
sticky1934
action comedy1936
quota quickie1936
re-release1936
screwball comedy1937
telemovie1937
pickup1939
video film1939
actioner1940
space opera1941
telepic1944
biopic1947
kinescope1949
TV movie1949
pièce noire1951
pièce rose1951
deepie1953
misterioso1953
film noir1956
policier1956
psychodrama1956
free film1958
prequel1958
co-production1959
glossy1960
sexploiter1960
sci-fier1961
tie-in1962
chanchada1963
romcom1963
wuxia1963
chick flick1964
showreel1964
mockumentary1965
sword-and-sandal1965
schlockbuster1966
mondo1967
peplum1968
thriller1968
whydunit1968
schlocker1969
buddy-buddy movie1972
buddy-buddy film1974
buddy film1974
science-fictioner1974
screwball1974
buddy movie1975
slasher movie1975
swashbuckler1975
filmi1976
triptych1976
autobiopic1977
Britcom1977
kidflick1977
noir1977
bodice-ripper1979
chopsocky1981
date movie1983
kaiju eiga1984
screener1986
neo-noir1987
indie1990
bromance2001
hack-and-slash2002
mumblecore2005
dark fantasy2007
hack-and-slay2007
gorefest2012
kidult-
1914 R. Grau Theatre of Sci. xi. 245 The latter arranged with the late Thomas W. Hanshew..to prepare a serial... Hanshew did not live to witness the triumph of this innovation which introduced the detective serial as a film feature.
1936 Edwardsville (Illinois) Intelligencer 24 Mar. 3/2 ‘The Hazards of Helen’ was her greatest cliff-hanger serial.
1946 Los Angeles Times 20 Oct. 20/3 It is familiar practice to offer serials and westerns to country theater owners as an inducement to take the high-budget A pictures.
1964 K. C. Lahue (title) Continued next week: a history of the moving picture serial.
2008 Guardian 30 Oct. (Technology section) 3/2 Originally imagined in Amazing Stories comic books and Buster Crabbe film serials, the flying backpack..is the most desirable and elusive of sci-fi gadgets.
c. A set of radio or television programmes broadcast in regular (e.g. weekly, daily, etc.) episodes, and typically having a continuous storyline or single theme; an episode of such a set of programmes. Cf. series n. 9d.Recorded earliest in radio serial n. at radio n. Compounds 1b. See also television serial n. at television n. Compounds 2b.
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society > communication > broadcasting > a broadcast programme or item > [noun] > types of
news bulletin1857
news summary1875
police message1886
newsflash1904
headline1908
play-by-play1909
feature1913
spot ad1916
magazine1921
news1923
time signal1923
outside broadcast1924
radiocast1924
amateur hour1925
bulletin1925
serial1926
commentary1927
rebroadcast1927
school broadcast1927
feature programme1928
trailer1928
hour1930
schools broadcast1930
show1930
spot advertisement1930
spot announcement1930
sustaining1931
flash1934
newscast1934
commercial1935
clambake1937
remote1937
repeat1937
snap1937
soap opera1939
sportcast1939
spot commercial1939
daytimer1940
magazine programme1941
season1942
soap1943
soaper1946
parade1947
public service announcement1948
simulcasting1949
breakfast-time television1952
call-in1952
talkathon1952
game show1953
kidvid1955
roundup1958
telenovela1961
opt-out1962
miniseries1963
simulcast1964
soapie1964
party political1966
novela1968
phone-in1968
sudser1968
schools programme1971
talk-in1971
God slot1972
roadshow1973
trail1973
drama-doc1977
informercial1980
infotainment1980
infomercial1981
kideo1983
talk-back1984
indie1988
omnibus1988
teleserye2000
kidult-
1926 Chicago Sunday Tribune 3 Jan. viii. 8/1 (heading) Radio serial makes its bow in Great Britain.
1937 Oakland (Calif.) Tribune 30 Dec. 20/1 Having listened to a formidable list of serials in my long and slightly checkered dialing career, I scarcely dare hope that [etc.].
1959 Life 14 Dec. 34/1 The Tugboat Annie serial [was] shifted to make room for President Eisenhower's address to the nation.
1990 B. Gill N.Y. Life xxix. 237 Serials featuring the inspector have long been a staple on radio and television.
2005 Observer 11 Sept. (Review section) 5/1 Pride and Prejudice was one of BBC TVs all-time hit serials in 1995.
2. Originally U.S. Military. A military unit or group of units organized under a single commander for troop movements or for drill; (hence more generally) any squad, esp. of police officers, formed for a special purpose.
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society > armed hostility > armed forces > the Army > unit of army > [noun]
companyc1325
compartment1590
brigade1637
detachment1678
contingent1728
unit1861
crowd1901
crush1904
mahalla1906
outfit1909
mob1916
serial1941
society > law > law enforcement > police force or the police > [noun] > branch or part of police force
squad1905
serial1976
1941 Cavalry Field Man. Employment of Cavalry (U.S. War Dept.) 219 Serial.—One or more march units, preferably with the same march characteristics placed under one commander for march purposes.
1974 C. Ryan Bridge too Far iii. i. 137 A special serial of 38 gliders carrying General Browning's Corps Headquarters, bound for Nijmegen, travelled with them.
1976 Daily Mail 8 Nov. 14/5 What a dreadful example of management it is to send serials (squads) of 20 constables containing two, three and sometimes more women to potentially violent demonstrations.
1987 Daily Tel. 29 Jan. 3/2 The police serial and firemen reached the Tangmere block where rioters had set fire to the supermarket.
2004 J. C. McManus Americans at D-Day (2005) ii. ix. 180 The serial carrying the 82nd Airborne's glider reinforcements (code-named the Detroit mission) made landfall on the western coast of the Cotentin.
Compounds
C1. Compounds of the adjective.
serial adulterer n. a person who has a series of successive, typically short-lived, adulterous affairs; cf. serial monogamist n.
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1992 Economist 15 Feb. 112/3 They were excellent friends, sharing meals, games of tennis and extra-marital ‘sprees’. The shah..was a serial adulterer.
2004 A. D. Lehmann & T. Carroll In Hitler's Bunker 96 In reality both the Goebbels were serial adulterers.
2010 N.Y. Post (Nexis) 10 Apr. 58 He was exposed as a serial adulterer who cheated on his wife by reportedly having affairs with more than a dozen women.
serial comma n. originally and chiefly U.S. a comma immediately preceding the conjunction in a list of items; = Oxford comma n. at Oxford n. and adj. Compounds 2.
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1922 Boston Globe 2 Nov. 14/7 An argument for the serial comma is found in..Gov. Miller's speech, ‘Courage, complete frankness, scorn of pretense and precise information mark his discussion.’
1973 N.Y. Times 1 Apr. 28/1 I couldn't figure how 80 people could attend..a paper on the use of serial commas in ‘Coriolanus’.
2007 N.Y. Mag. 20 Aug. 69/3 They're not afraid to geek out—one song revolves around the divisive ‘Oxford’ or serial comma.
serial data n. data that comes or is generated in succession; (Computing) data that consists of bits sent singly one after another along the same route, rather than in groups of 8, 16, etc., bits at a time (frequently attributive).
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1897 Jrnl. Royal Statist. Soc. 60 746 From 1878 the German empire has supplied continuous annual reports, and similar serial data have been more lately begun in some provinces of Canada.
1929 Proc. Aristotelian Soc. 30 239 His task here will be to investigate the logical pattern by means of which serial data [from interviews] can be redressed in quantitative form.
1934 Jrnl. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 29 184 This paper shows the general method for fitting an exponential equation to serial data.
1972 Computer Design Mar. 102/1 A technique that..has the..advantage of being able to convert serial data arriving LSB (least significant bit) or MSB (most significant bit) first.
1988 S. G. Smith & P. B. Denyer Serial-Data Computation i. 1 In..real-time computation, serial-data machines exhibit many advantages over equivalent bit-parallel machines.
2000 P. Scherz Pract. Electronics for Inventors xii. 395 When the clock line receives a positive clock edge, the serial data are shifted to the right from flip-flop 0 to flip-flop 1.
2012 D. Boswarthick et al. M2M Communications ix. 262 The Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C) interface, also called the ‘two-wire’ interface, is a synchronous serial data link with a multimaster bus.
serial entrepreneur n. an entrepreneur who starts up or runs multiple successive businesses, esp. one who moves on as soon as the challenge or thrill of making a venture profitable is over.
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1991 Inc. Mar. 26/1 Once is not enough. Lots of serial entrepreneurs, who spawn one company after the next, swear it. But two start-ups at the same time?
2001 H. Gardner et al. Good Work iv. 71 While Connor rejects the label of ‘serial entrepreneur’, he clearly draws excitement from starting businesses and steering them to success.
2007 Sharp Edge June 96 Duncan Bannatyne, self-made serial entrepreneur, is offering one lucky reader..the chance to pitch him face-to-face with that killer business idea.
serial interface n. Computing a type of data interface in which multiple bits are transmitted as a single sequence; contrasted with parallel interface n. at parallel n., adj., and adv. Compounds 2.
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1971 U.S. Patent 3,585,599 Fig. 15H Log xmit sends byte to serial interface.
1994 Amstrad Action June 13/2 One of the hackers..did it all with a CPC, serial interface and modem.
2003 Handwoven Jan. 7/2 An article on SLIPS and LIPS interfaces that includes a flow chart for a serial interface.
serial marriage n. (each of) a series of successive (typically short-lived) marriages; the action of marrying repeatedly.
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1970 A. Toffler Future Shock xi. 223 Serial marriage—a pattern of successive temporary marriages—is cut to order for the Age of Transience.
1993 New Yorker 20 Sept. 90/1 I was told of one Name whose vivid taste for serial marriage was finally quenched when, anticipating possible losses, he put all his assets in his wife's name.
2003 New Republic 24 Mar. 23/2 Heterosexual relationships..also span the gamut—from traditional, lifelong monogamy to serial marriages and multiple divorces.
serial monogamist n. a person who practises serial monogamy.
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1973 Denton (Texas) Record-Chron. 26 Jan. 5 a/1 Most of these [American teenagers] are monogamous—or serial monogamists—believing that sex is not merely ‘for fun and pleasure’ but an expression of love.
1986 Chicago Tribune 23 Feb. v. 3/2 Frankly, in today's economy, I find one woman at a time to be just about all I care to handle, thank you. Call me a ‘serial monogamist’.
2001 Mirror (Electronic ed.) 16 Jan. (M Mag.) Longest time he's been celibate?..‘Three weeks, because he's a serial monogamist.’
serial monogamy n. the practice of engaging in a succession of monogamous sexual relationships.
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1949 Q. Rev. Biol. 24 176/2 The author has sometimes a very happy hand at making formulations like the term ‘serial monogamy’ for our present-day marriage system.
1970 Sat. Rev. (U.S.) 25 Apr. 23/3 The full-scale emergence of serial monogamy has been accompanied by an explosive upswing of experimentation.
2004 N.Y. Times 25 Jan. iv. 15/4 If more people are resisting marriage, or fleeing the ones they're in, or inventing new permutations like cohabitation and serial monogamy, here's one reason:..marriage just doesn't turn out to be as gratifying as it promises.
serial murderer n. = serial killer n.
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the world > life > death > killing > man-killer or homicide > [noun] > murderer or assassin > types of
assassin1340
Old Man of the Mountain1579
fedai1723
thug1810
nasty man1863
Jack the Ripper1888
ripper1909
trunk murderer1925
sex killer1935
mass-murderer1943
serial murderer1947
psycho-killer1949
serial killer1967
spree killer1983
1947Serial murderer [see sense A. 7].
1965 T. A. Cullen When London walked in Terror xii. 171 The landlady heroine..cannot bring herself to turn over to the police the lodger, Mr. Sleuth, whom she suspects of being a serial murderer.
1983 News Herald (Panama City, Florida) 27 Oct. 9 a/1 Unlike mass murderers, whose killings all occur in one spot, serial murderers often cross city and state lines, making their detection more difficult.
1997 I. Rankin Black & Blue (1998) vii. 119 The serial murderer was supposedly withdrawn, with few close friends, so he had forced himself to become gregarious.
2004 N.Y. Times Mag. 12 Dec. 90/1 According to Babiak and Hare, white-collar psychopaths are not apt to become serial rapists or murderers.
serial port n. Computing an input or output socket providing a single place through which data is transmitted as a succession of individual bits, typically used to connect a personal computer to a peripheral; (also) a serial interface; contrasted with parallel port n. at parallel n., adj., and adv. Compounds 2.
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1976 Microprocessors 1 23/2 Wire links on the board are used to select an RS232C, TTY current loop, or a TTL interface for the serial port.
1991 Online Access Fall 25/1 An external modem sits beside your PC, with a cable connecting it to one of the PC's serial ports. It gets its power from a wall outlet.
2004 ‘Dr. K.’ Hackers' Tales v. 98 We saw this as a perfect machine to drive the stepper motors, because it would take the load off the BBC's CPU, yet could communicate with the BBC at the same time using the serial port.
serial position n. Education and Psychology the position an item occupies in a series which is to be learnt and recalled as part of a serial test (see sense A. 5); frequently attributive.
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1926 Amer. Jrnl. Psychol. 37 538 It is apparent..that the effects of serial position upon memorization still constitute something of an issue.
1948 E. R. Hilgard Theories of Learning iv. 97 (caption) Serial position effect in the memorization of a list of 15 nonsense syllables.
1972 Jrnl. Social Psychol. 86 106 For both liked and disliked names the typical serial position curve was noted with most errors occurring in the middle of the lists.
2000 G. H. Bower in E. Tulving & F. I. M. Craik Oxf. Handbk. Memory i. 6 (caption) Predicted and observed relative serial position error curves for 8-, 11-, and 14-item lists.
serial rapist n. a person who commits a series of rapes, typically following a characteristic behaviour pattern.
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1983 W. H. Webster Let. 23 Sept. in Serial Murders (Hearing before U.S. Senate Judiciary Comm., 98th Congr., 1st Sess.) (1984) 6 Expanded research designed to gain insight into the criminal mind will include..Serial Rapist Research. This grant proposal..will involve the interview of 35-50 convicted serial rapists.
1990 C. Fletcher What Cops Know (1992) 129 When you look at serial offenders—serial rapists, serial killers—you have to look at both the M.O. and the ritual.
2005 Times 12 Oct. 34/1 An exclusion zone has been imposed on a suspected serial rapist who police believe has attacked three women.
serial reproduction n. Psychology the transmission of a story, piece of knowledge, etc., by being passed on repeatedly from one person to another, esp. with reference to the alterations made to the original message during such transmission (cf. Chinese whispers n. at Chinese adj. and n. Compounds 7).
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1920 F. C. Bartlett in Folklore 31 33 The effort to rationalise..is very prominent in serial reproduction.
1952 J. A. McGeoch & A. L. Irion Psychol. Human Learning x. 369 The results of one series of experiments by the method of serial reproduction..are important for their bearing upon the social diffusion of information.
2004 D. J. Schneider Psychol. of Stereotyping (2005) iv. 144 In a serial reproduction paradigm (where one person hears the story, relays it to a second person, etc.), people who hear the original narrative recall more inconsistent information.
serial temperatures n. temperatures measured at fixed intervals, originally at successive depths in a body of water (now rare), in later use (chiefly Medicine) at set times.
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1870 Pop. Sci. Rev. 9 288 In this way the serial temperature soundings were obtained.]
1873 Jackson's Oxf. Jrnl. 5 Apr. 6/3 The usual programme was to..obtain a sounding-haul of the dredge and serial temperatures at every 100 fathoms from the surface down to 1500 fathoms.
1901 Science 6 Dec. 900/1 Then follow records of the surface and intermediate tow nets, miscellaneous records and records of serial temperatures.
1956 U.S. Geol. Surv. Water-supply Paper No. 1363. 14 Temperature profiles (temperatures at various depths from the surface to the bottom of the lake, formerly called serial temperatures) of 12 lakes in northern Indiana.
1974 Lancet 26 Jan. 120/1 Measurement is the fibre of modern medicine, and trends are shown by serial temperatures, sedimentation-rates, and haemoglobin or urea estimations.
2007 Cerebrovascular Dis. 24 104 Serial temperatures were measured until 48 h after ischaemic stroke in a prospectively recruited cohort.
C2. Compounds of the noun.
a. Objective, chiefly in senses B. 1a and B. 1c, as serial-writer, serial-writing, etc.Some unhyphenated instances may be interpreted as adjectival; cf. sense A. 2b.
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1841 Lit. Gaz. 6 Feb. 87/3 One of the most successful of the serial writers of the day.
1857 Morning Post 1 May 2/6 One [fault] especially has attracted our notice—an anachronism incidental to serial writing.
1879 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Mar. 342/2 The very general practice of serial-writing is in some ways unfavourable to the better style of art.
1888 Lippincott's Monthly Mag. Oct. 488 Friendly opinions from serial-readers were reassuring as far as they went.
1913 Survey 12 July 510/2 Youth has been treated as a negligible portion of the serial-reading public.
1966 Star-News (Pasadena, Calif.) 30 July 3/1 It was like 12 Saturday matinees rolled into one horrendous four-hour orgy of serial-watching.
2006 Hindustan Times (Nexis) 15 Sept. Who, apart from the most diehard serial-watchers would have heard of Manish and Poonam.
b.
serial rights n. rights attaching to the publication or broadcast of a story, drama, etc., in serial form; also occasionally in singular.
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1879 19th Cent. 997 Country journals,..instead of using an inferior article, will often purchase the ‘serial right’, as it is called, of stories which have already appeared elsewhere.
1880 Times 13 Aug. 12/1 We received a sum of money for the serial rights—i.e., the appearance of the story from week to week in some American publication.
1903 J. London Let. 10 Mar. (1966) 150 The serial right has passed out of my hands.
1970 L. Meynell Curious Crime of Miss Julia Blossom xv. 180 Serial rights. American rights, and I saw a para in last night's Standard saying somebody was after the film rights too.
2003 Independent 1 Aug. 3/1 They paid an estimated £700,000 for the serial rights to Honest last autumn.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2013; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.n.1823- to sit on one's knees
- to sit on one's skirts
- to sit on one's throne
- to sit on or upon the fence
- to sit on the pine
- to sit on the splice
- to sit on the throne
- to sit on thorns
- to sit on thorns a thorn
- to sit on upon one's skirts
- to sit one sore
- to sit out
- to sit over
- to sit pad
- to sit pillion
- to sit provost-place
- to sit provostplace
- to sit ride the pine
- to sit shiva
- to sit tall
- to sit through
- to sit tight
- to sit to
- to sit under
- to sit up