serac
/sɛˈɹæk/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.10 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "The smoke found its way out of the holes in the roof as it liked best; and nearly over the fire was a black smoky shelf, supporting several masses of that inferior white cheese, called Serac."
- "Here and elsewhere the sérac, which is something between curd and cheese, may be advantageously taken instead of butter, which is almost always bad."
- "Note the Alpine cheese dairy on the Iseltenalp, where fresh dairy produce are made every day (milk, butter, cheese and serac)."
- "Perhaps the finest part of it [the Lysjoch] is the grand sérac scenery of the Zwillinge Glacier. In August, 1876, a party of four, having missed the right track in crossing this pass when the snow was in very bad condition, were carried down in an avalanche of loose snow probably started by their own weight."
- "Numerous blocks of ice, to which the name "serac" is given, covered the plain. These are large fragments of frozen snow, almost rectangular. They take their name from the resemblance they bear to a compact cheese called "serac," which is made from skimmed milk, and pressed into rectangular cans."
- "As you mount the Aletschhorn from the sleeping place, towards the lowest col from which you first overlook the Lotsch Glacier there descends, from a higher plateau, and on your right hand, a large mass of sérac."
Etymology
From Swiss French sérac (“kind of cheese; sharp tower of ice”), from Franco-Provençal sera, seré, from Latin seraceum, from serum (“whey”), from Proto-Indo-European *ser- (“to flow, run”). Sense 2 is from the resemblance of the towers of ice to the cheese, which tends to cleave into rectangular pieces.
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /sɛˈɹæk/
- British English: /sɛˈɹæk/