serial
Noun pluralserials
Pluralserials
Formsserials
- 1Repeatedly performing a particular action or following the same course of action.
Investigators concluded they were dealing with a serial offender.
She built a reputation as a serial entrepreneur, launching one venture after another.
Similarhabitual, persistent, chronic, compulsive
Oppositefirst-time, one-time, occasional
Note
Here the series is made of one person's repeated acts: serial killer, serial entrepreneur, serial monogamist. The adjective sits before a noun naming what the person does, and that noun sets the tone. A serial killer is damning, while a serial entrepreneur can be admiring. Career works much the same way as a near-synonym, marking a habit pursued so steadily that it becomes a kind of occupation.
- 2A dramatic or literary work released in successive installments, often numbered and without a set ending.
Each new serial drew millions of viewers eager to see how the plot would twist.
The studio commissioned a serial that ran for six seasons without a planned finale.
Similarseries
- 3Forming part of, or arranged in, a connected series of items or events.
The events unfolded in serial order, each one triggering the next.
Engineers laid out the tests as a serial sequence so that no two ran together.
Similarsequential
Oppositeparallel, simultaneous, concurrent
Note
The root sense of the word, built in English from series + -al on the pattern of Latin seriālis. Its earliest use dates to about 1823, when the Royal Institution's Quarterly Journal described the "serial teeth" of a hinge, which are teeth set one after another in a row. Like its synonym sequential, it is not comparable: things either stand in a series or they do not, so "more serial" is not idiomatic.
- 4An identification code, especially the alphanumeric key required to activate or register software.
Like the key that comes with a lock: without it, the software stays shut.
The download wouldn't activate until she entered a valid serial.
Pirated copies often circulate with cracked serials that bypass activation.
Note
A clipped form of serial number, at home in computing slang, where it names the activation key itself. It keeps company with cracks and keygens in talk of pirated software, and that association colors it. In documentation, support pages or anything formal, the full phrase serial number is the safer choice. The plural is serials.
- 5Issued or produced in successive installments rather than all at once.
The Victorian novel first appeared in serial form across eighteen monthly installments.
Many classic dramas reached audiences through serial broadcasts before home video existed.
Similarepisodic
- 6A publication that appears in a continuing series of parts, often numbered, with no end fixed in advance.
The library cataloged each serial under its own subscription record.
Academic journals are treated as serials because new issues keep appearing indefinitely.
Similarperiodical
Less common meanings
- 7To assign a serial number to something, especially an aircraft.
Inspectors serial each airframe so it can be tracked through its service life.
Manufacturers serial their aircraft according to strict government rules.
Similarnumber
Note
Aviation's verb for numbering: an aircraft is serialed when it receives its identifying number, and the verb always takes an object. The spelling splits by region. American usage writes serialed and serialing, while British usage doubles the consonant in serialled and serialling, as travel does.
- 8A unit of police officers equipped with shields, deployed to control a riot.
Commanders ordered a serial forward as the crowd surged against the barriers.
Two serials held the line outside the stadium for hours.
Similarunit, squad, detachment
Note
British police vocabulary, in which a serial is a unit of officers. In riot work the fuller phrase is often shield serials. Tony Moore's Policing Notting Hill (2013) describes serials working in pairs, one carrying long shields and one short. It counts like squad or unit (a serial, two serials) and has nothing to do with the broadcast drama.
- 9Relating to a grammatical aspect that marks an action as habitual and ongoing.
Linguists describe the serial aspect as combining habitual and continuous meaning.
Some languages use a serial aspect where English relies on words like "always" or "usually."
Note
Grammarians use it as the name of an aspect, and the name fits: the action is pictured as a recurring run of events that is still going on. It joins two meanings often kept apart. Habitual means the action happens regularly, and continuous means it is in progress. A form marked as serial asserts both at once.
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Practice
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Origin
Formed from 'series' plus the suffix '-al', modeled on Latin 'seriālis' (from 'seriēs' + '-ālis') and cognate with Italian 'seriale'. It first appears around 1823.