Adjective: serious
Comparison Forms
Synthetic
Perifrastic
| Comparative | more serious |
| Superlative | most serious |
Sample Sentences
-
deadly serious
-
It was a surprise to see the captain, who had always seemed so serious, laugh so heartily.
-
This is a serious problem. We'll need our best experts.
-
After all these years, we're finally getting serious attention.
-
He says he wants to buy the team, but is he serious?
Adjectives inflected like serious
priest-ridden,
unreposed,
evadible,
dissentious,
dissentient,
unforesighted,
egocentrical,
unephemeral,
unennobling,
mensuralist,
flocculent,
unseductive,
whoopsy,
whooshy,
surrogate,
Nicodian,
unrepaired,
prismatoidal,
renorenal,
unseducible, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)
Etymology
1. Etymology tree
2. Proto-Indo-European *seh₁-
3. Proto-Indo-European *-rós
4. Proto-Italic *sēros
5. Latin sērus
6. Proto-Indo-European *-(i)yós
7. Proto-Italic *-ijos
8. Proto-Italic *-ios
9. Old Latin -ios
10. Latin -ius
11. ?
12. Proto-Indo-European *swer-
13. Proto-Indo-European *-yós
14. Proto-Italic *swerjos?
15. Latin sērius
16. Proto-Indo-European *h₃ed-
17. Proto-Indo-European *-os
18. Proto-Indo-European *h₃édosder.?
19. Proto-Italic *-ŏ̄dsos?
20. Old Latin -ōssus
21. Latin -ōsus
22. Medieval Latin sēriōsus
23. Old French serieuxbor.
24. Middle English seryows
25. English serious
26. From Middle English seryows, from Old French serieux, from Medieval Latin sēriōsus, an extension of Latin sērius (“grave, earnest, serious”), possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *swer- (“heavy”). (If this root is correct, cognate with German schwer (“heavy, difficult, severe”), Old English swǣr (“heavy, grave, grievous”). More at swear, sweer. However, see sērius for an alternative derivation of the Latin.) See: Latin Adjectives '
sērius', German Adjectives '
schwer'.