Word.ws English Dictionary

serge

/sɜːd͡ʒ/US/sɝd͡ʒ/

serge noun: a type of worsted cloth.

Noun (1)

serge (countable and uncountable, plural serges)

  1. A type of worsted cloth.
    • Lucy, who had only seen her in either the large loose wrapping dress of serge, or in the quaint simplicity of the Puritanic garb, then so general in England, could not restrain an exclamation of admiration as she returned to their chamber.1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XIV, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 110
    • What I noticed most strongly was his smell, of hair oil and serge and cigarette smoke, and something else, something intimate and sour and wholly, shockingly other.1993, John Banville, Ghosts
  2. (metonymically) A garment made of this fabric.

Verb

serge (third-person singular simple present serges, present participle serging, simple past and past participle serged)

  1. To overlock.

Noun (2)

serge (plural serges)

  1. A large wax candle used in some church ceremonies.

serge meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Telugu and Malayalam

serge in Tamil

செர்ஜ்

serge in Urdu

سیرج

serge in Telugu

సెర్జ్

serge in Malayalam

കട്ടിയും ബലവുമുള്ള കമ്പിളിത്തുണി
More languagesFewer languages
serge in Kannada
ಸೆರ್ಜ್

Examples of serge in a sentence

  • Three more beside him, all wearing the unfamiliar blue serge of the Queensland Police Force.
  • Molly, in the regulation blue serge and coloured hat-ribbon of schoolgirldom, approached her grand-uncle with solemn eyes.
  • Same blue serge dress she had two years ago, the nap bleaching.

All 12 example sentences with serge

Forms of serge

Noun
pluralserges
Verb
third-person singular presentserges
present participleserging
past participleserged
pastserged

Origin of serge

From Middle English sarge, from Old French sarge, serge, from Vulgar Latin *sarica, from Latin sērica (“silken, silk things”), from Ancient Greek σηρικός (sērikós, “silken”), from σήρ (sḗr, “silkworm”) + -ικός (-ikós, “-ic”), possibly from Old Chinese 絲 (*sə, “silk”). Doublet of silk and seric.

From Middle English cerge, from Old French ci(e)rge, cerge & chierge.

Words formed from serge

Words that rhyme with serge

6 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about serge

What does serge mean?
Serge means a type of worsted cloth.
What is serge in Tamil?
Serge in Tamil is செர்ஜ். See Serge meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is serge?
Serge can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce serge?
Serge is pronounced /sɜːd͡ʒ/ (UK).
What is the plural of serge?
The plural of serge is serges.

Words near serge in the dictionary

  1. serfs
  2. serfship
  3. serg
  4. sergal
  5. sergals
  6. serge
  7. sergeancies
  8. sergeancy
  9. sergeant
  10. sergeant at mace
  11. sergeant baker

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: serge (page history and authors); serge (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); serge (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); serge (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); serge (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); serge (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-serge.wav.

Cite this entry: “serge.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/serge. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.