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prettygoodwordserried (SER-eed) - adj., crowded together in rows.
And not, as I usually think, an alternate form of serrated, though I'm sure I'm not the only person to conflate the two. Used especially of ranks of troops not because that's the leftover sense but because it's the original one: used since the 1660s as participle of the obsolete serry, to close ranks, borrowed in the 1570s from Middle French serré, close-packed, from serrer, to crowd, to shut up, from Vulgar Latin *serrāre, alteration of Late Latin serāre, to bar (a door), from Latin sera, a door-bar. So at root, the serried troops in the parade ground are metaphorically locked up in a tight space.
---L.
And not, as I usually think, an alternate form of serrated, though I'm sure I'm not the only person to conflate the two. Used especially of ranks of troops not because that's the leftover sense but because it's the original one: used since the 1660s as participle of the obsolete serry, to close ranks, borrowed in the 1570s from Middle French serré, close-packed, from serrer, to crowd, to shut up, from Vulgar Latin *serrāre, alteration of Late Latin serāre, to bar (a door), from Latin sera, a door-bar. So at root, the serried troops in the parade ground are metaphorically locked up in a tight space.
---L.
