Word.ws English Dictionary

syre

syre is the obsolete form of sire.

Meaning of sire

Noun

sire (plural sires)

  1. A lord, master, or other person in authority, most commonly used vocatively: formerly in speaking to elders and superiors, later only when addressing a sovereign.
    • The Sultan (impatiently).—Confound this dadblasted collar-bolt! I wish it had— Izzet Aintit Wazzit Pasha (custodian of the imperial wardrobe).—Can I be of any assistance, Sire? The Sultan.—Well, you might get a can of oil and a monkey-wrench and help me off with this undershirt. It’s long past...1908 September 23, “In Turkey”, in A[rthur] H[amilton] Folwell, editor, Puck, volume LXIV, number 1647, New York, N.Y.: Keppler & Schwarzmann, →OCLC
  2. A male animal that has fathered a particular offspring (especially used of domestic animals and in biological research).
  3. (obsolete) A father; the head of a family; the husband.
    • He but a Duke, would haue his Sonne a King, / And raiſe his iſſue like a louing Sire.c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
  4. (obsolete) A creator; a maker; an author; an originator.
    • Most musical of mourners, weep again! / Lament anew, Urania!—He died, / Who was the sire of an immortal strain, […]1821, Percy B[ysshe] Shelley, Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, […], Pisa, Italy: […] Didot; reprinted London: Noel Douglas […], 1927, →OCLC, stanza IV, page 8
  5. The vampire who turned another person.
    • There is a toxin in a vampire’s fangs that will infect its victim when the sire drinks deeply and fully of their blood.2010, Michelle Rowen, Bitten & Smitten, page 24

See all 7 meanings of sire

Forms of syre

Noun
pluralsyres
Verb
third-person singular presentsyres
present participlesyring
past participlesyred
pastsyred

Questions about syre

What is syre the obsolete form of?
Syre is the obsolete form of sire.

Words near syre in the dictionary

  1. syrah
  2. syrahs
  3. syrang
  4. syrangs
  5. Syrastrene
  6. syre
  7. syred
  8. syren
  9. syrens
  10. syres
  11. Syrets

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: syre (page history and authors); sire (page history and authors). 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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Cite this entry: “syre.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/syre. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.