Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Grave in quality or manner: gave me a serious look.
- adj. Carried out in earnest: engaged in serious drinking; serious study of Italian.
- adj. Deeply interested or involved: a serious card player.
- adj. Designed for and addressing grave and earnest tastes: serious art; serious music.
- adj. Not trifling or jesting: I'm serious: we expect you to complete the assignment on time. Her question was serious enough to deserve a thoughtful response.
- adj. Informal Of considerable size or scope; substantial: a cleanup that cost serious money.
- adj. Of such character or quality as to appeal to the expert, the connoisseur, or the sophisticate: "Every serious kitchen needs at least one peppermill” ( Washington Post).
- adj. Concerned with important rather than trivial matters: a serious student of history.
- adj. Being of such import as to cause anxiety: serious injuries; a serious turn of events.
- adj. Too complex to be easily answered or solved: raised some serious objections to the proposal.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Grave in feeling, manner, or disposition; solemn; earnest; not light, gay, or volatile; of things, springing from, expressing, or inducing gravity or earnestness of feeling.
- In earnest; not jesting or making pretense.
- Important; weighty; not trifling.
- Attended with danger; giving rise to apprehension: as, a serious illness.
- Deeply impressed with the importance of religion; making profession of or pretension to religion.
- Synonyms Solemn, etc. See grave.
- 1 and Sedate, staid, sober, earnest.
- Great, momentous.
Wiktionary
- adj. Without humor or expression of happiness; grave in manner or disposition; earnest; thoughtful; solemn.
- adj. Important; weighty; not trifling; leaving no room for play; needing great attention; critical.
- adj. Really intending what is said; being in earnest; not jesting or deceiving; meaningful.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Grave in manner or disposition; earnest; thoughtful; solemn; not light, gay, or volatile.
- adj. Really intending what is said; being in earnest; not jesting or deceiving.
- adj. Important; weighty; not trifling; grave.
- adj. Hence, giving rise to apprehension; attended with danger.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. completely lacking in playfulness
- adj. concerned with work or important matters rather than play or trivialities
- adj. requiring effort or concentration; complex and not easy to answer or solve
- adj. of great consequence
- adj. appealing to the mind
- adj. causing fear or anxiety by threatening great harm
Etymologies
- From Middle English seryows, from Old French serieux, from Medieval Latin sēriōsus, an extension of Latin sērius ("grave, earnest, serious"), from Proto-Indo-European *swēr- (“heavy”). Cognate with German schwer ("heavy, difficult, severe"), Old English swǣr ("heavy, grave, grievous"). More at swear, sweer. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old French serieux, from Late Latin sēriōsus, from Latin sērius. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Pávlovna, there are things which must be investigated and fully understood before they can be talked about, things too serious, too serious ...”
“She petted the friendly cat, her expression serious as she stared up at James.”
“Her eyes were alert, her expression serious and self-conscious and beautifully placid.”
“COOPER: Richard, let's talk about consequences -- 1441 used the term serious consequences if Iraq failed to abide by the resolution.”
““Mother suffered?” the younger man asked, at great length, his expression serious again.”
“New York lawmakers Wednesday criticized the city's plan to remove PCB-contaminated lights from public schools over a 10-year period, saying it is insufficient to address what they call a serious health risk to children.”
“The president spoke to reporters Wednesday and compared the controversy to a carnival, at what he called a serious time.”
“Their departures came on the day the phone-hacking scandal engulfing Murdoch's empire led him to issue a widespread, abject apology for what he described as "serious wrongdoing".”
The Guardian: Rupert Murdoch's bloody Friday as Rebekah Brooks and Les Hinton quit
“It was a small but horrifying item in the Los Angeles Times: Police are asking for the public's help in identifying what they call a 'serious, dangerous serial killer operating in Orange County.”
The Huffington Post: Diane Dimond: Is There a Serial Killer Near You?
“The maker of cameras and medical-imaging equipment sacked Chief Executive Michael Woodford last month after he demanded that the board look into what he described as serious governance concerns'' surrounding the four acquisitions.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘serious’.
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POL - scandalous (single words only)
acolyte, archrival, backhander, backlash, baksheesh, bashing, boo, bribery, cadre, chicanery, clash, coercion and 256 more...
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Visuals
A list of words which yield surprising, beautiful, amusing, or otherwise noteworthy images here on Wordnik.
photochrom, fufluns, thank you, cool l..., postcard, picture postcard, cricket, physiological ill..., Gakuryū Ishii, ametropia, One Froggy Evening, rhodopsin, Santiago Calatrava and 636 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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EN - Glasgow stop list
Words to be replaced by a paragraph mark if you are after terms and MWEs.
yours, yourself, yet, your, without, you, within, will, yourselves, would, why, with and 291 more...
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EU Buzz - Lisbon Treaty
All words of the Lisbon Treaty
(Persons' names, foreign and grammatical words have been eliminated, MWEs have been split up into individual words. Capitalization has been retained if r...conferral, stateless, person, voting, right, subsidiarity, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia, Lithuania, Finland, Estonia and 2614 more...
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Describing People
eye, hair, mouth, nose, tooth, head, face, arm, hand, finger, lip, leg and 212 more...
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Stuffie: Deathly pale
I couldn't delete this list, so let's turn it into a stuffie of sorts. I'm thinking of idioms that include the word dead.
weight, pan, ahead, night of the living, on my feet, serious, man's curve, of the night, quiet, battery, fish, link and 6 more...
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Neoclassicism
Words to describe Neoclassicism
democracy, sober, instructing, egalitarian, rational, thinker, balance, order, organized, idealistic, serious, intellectual and 36 more...
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quotato's Words
prospicience, appoggiatura, actually, thrum, nisus, univocal, eschatology, concupiscible, penury, psychedelic, vapid, braggadocio and 107 more...
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zzyyxx's Words
plethora, drout, functional, rye, wring, doubt, cognative, weird, gnaw, surcease, rend, languish and 438 more...
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Miss Sunshine
she's such a joy.
bereaved, bitter, cheerless, dejected, depressed, despairing, despondent, disconsolate, dismal, distressed, doleful, downcast and 405 more...
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Allographic Homophones
Words that can be pronounced identically but are spelled differently. I've started with unusual or extensive sets. In some of these sets, no one speaker would pronounce them all the same. I've trie...
air, are, ayr, ayre, e'er, ere, err, eyre, heir, apatite, appetite, picnic and 226 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
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Expressions
(Facial)
pained, pitiful, reproachful, annoyed, dismissive, excited, eager, spiteful, contemptuous, passive, calm, nervous and 155 more...
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savage215's Words
pipe, yankee, knickerbocker, tennis, plasma, magma, volcano, car, truck, television, tv, word and 445 more...
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fbharjo's Words
jumelle, kef, kenspeckle, lautitious, essentic, pilpulistic, impavid, cicurant, clou, chrysostomic, miasma, teleology and 1625 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for serious.
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