serial

• POS: Adjective, Noun
• HYPHEN: se=ri=al

CIDE DICTIONARY

serial, a. 

•  Of or pertaining to a series; consisting of a series; appearing in successive parts or numbers; as, a serial work or publication.  H. Spencer.  [1913 Webster]
•  Of or pertaining to rows.  Gray.  [1913 Webster]

Serial homology. (Biol.) See under Homology. -- Serial symmetry. (Biol.) See under Symmetry.

serial, n. 

 A publication appearing in a series or succession of part; a tale, or other writing, published in successive numbers of a periodical.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

serial, n. & adj.
--n.
1 a story, play, or film which is published, broadcast, or shown in regular instalments.
2 a periodical.
--adj.
1 of or in or forming a series.
2 (of a story etc.) in the form of a serial.
3 Mus. using transformations of a fixed series of notes (see SERIES).
4 (of a publication) appearing in successive parts published usu. at regular intervals, periodical.

Idiom

serial killer a person who murders continuously with no apparent motive. serial number a number showing the position of an item in a series. serial rights the right to publish a story or book as a serial.

Derivative

seriality n. serially adv.

Etymology

SERIES + -AL

DEVIL DICTIONARY

serial

n. A literary work, usually a story that is not true, creeping through several issues of a newspaper or magazine. Frequently appended to each installment is a "synposis of preceding chapters" for those who have not read them, but a direr need is a synposis of succeeding chapters for those who do not intend to read _them_. A synposis of the entire work would be still better.
The late James F. Bowman was writing a serial tale for a weekly paper in collaboration with a genius whose name has not come down to us. They wrote, not jointly but alternately, Bowman supplying the installment for one week, his friend for the next, and so on, world without end, they hoped. Unfortunately they quarreled, and one Monday morning when Bowman read the paper to prepare himself for his task, he found his work cut out for him in a way to surprise and pain him. His collaborator had embarked every character of the narrative on a ship and sunk them all in the deepest part of the Atlantic.

THESAURUS

serial

Grand Guignol, Passion play, Tom show, alternate, annual, antimasque, article, audience success, ballet, beating, best seller, bimonthly, biweekly, bomb, book, bound book, broadcast, broadcast drama, burlesque show, canned show, catenary, chapter, charade, circling, classic, clause, cliff hanger, closet drama, coloring book, column, comedy drama, commercial, commercial program, connected, consecutive, consistent, continuous, critical success, cyclic, daily, daybook, daytime serial, definitive work, dialogue, diary, documentary drama, drama, dramalogue, dramatic play, dramatic series, duodrama, duologue, editorial, electrical transcription, ephemeris, epic theater, epochal, even, every other, experimental theater, extravaganza, failure, fascicle, flop, folio, fortnightly, gasser, gazette, giveaway, great work, happening, hardback, hit, hit show, improvisational drama, installment, intermittent, isochronal, joined, journal, journalese, journalistic, juvenile, juvenile book, legitimate drama, limp-cover book, lineal, linear, livraison, magazine, magazinish, magaziny, magnum opus, masque, measured, melodrama, metronomic, minstrel show, miracle, miracle play, monodrama, monologue, monthly, morality, morality play, music drama, musical revue, mystery, mystery play, network show, newscast, newsmagazine, newspaperish, newspapery, nonbook, notebook, novel, opera, opus, opuscule, opusculum, orderly, ordinal, organ, oscillatory, pageant, panel show, pantomime, paperback, paragraph, part, passage, pastoral, pastoral drama, periodical, phrase, pictorial, picture book, piece, play, playbook, playlet, pocket book, prayer book, problem play, production, progressive, psalmbook, psalter, psychodrama, publication, pulsing, quarterly, quiz show, radio drama, radio fare, radiobroadcast, rebroadcast, reciprocal, recurrent, recurring, reportorial, rerun, review, revue, rhythmic, rotary, seasonal, section, sensational play, sequent, sequential, seriate, show, sitcom, situation comedy, sketch, sketchbook, skit, slick magazine, soap, soap opera, sociodrama, soft-cover, songbook, sound effects, spectacle, sportscast, stage play, stage show, standard work, steady, storybook, straight drama, subsequent, succeeding, success, successional, successive, suspense drama, sustainer, tableau, tableau vivant, talk show, taped program, teleplay, television drama, television play, theater of cruelty, tight, title, tome, total theater, trade book, trade magazine, undulant, undulatory, uninterrupted, variety show, vaudeville, vaudeville show, vehicle, verse, volume, wavelike, weekly, wheeling, word-of-mouth success, work, writing, yearbook

ROGET THESAURUS

serial

Book

N booklet, writing, work, volume, tome, opuscule, tract, tractate, livret, brochure, libretto, handbook, codex, manual, pamphlet, enchiridion, circular, publication, chap book, part, issue, number livraison, album, portfolio, periodical, serial, magazine, ephemeris, annual, journal, paper, bill, sheet, broadsheet, leaf, leaflet, fly leaf, page, quire, ream, chapter, section, head, article, paragraph, passage, clause, endpapers, frontispiece, cover, binding, folio, quarto, octavo, duodecimo, sextodecimo, octodecimo, encyclopedia, encompilation, library, bibliotheca, press, definitive work, treatise, comprehensive treatise (dissertation), writer, author, litterateur, essayist, journalism, pen, scribbler, the scribbling race, literary hack, Grub-street writer, writer for the press, gentleman of the press, representative of the press, adjective jerker, diaskeaust, ghost, hack writer, ink slinger, publicist, reporter, penny a liner, editor, subeditor, playwright, poet, bookseller, publisher, bibliopole, bibliopolist, librarian, bookstore, bookshop, bookseller's shop, knowledge of books, bibliography, book learning, among the giant fossils of my past, craignez tout d'un auteur en courroux, for authors nobler palms remain, I lived to write and wrote to live, look in thy heart and write, there is no Past so long as Books shall live, the public mind is the creation of the Master-Writ, volumes that I prize above my dukedom.

Continuity

N continuity, consecution, consecutiveness, succession, round, suite, progression, series, train chain, catenation, concatenation, scale, gradation, course, ceaselessness, constant flow, unbroken extent, procession, column, retinue, cortege, cavalcade, rank and file, line of battle, array, pedigree, genealogy, lineage, race, ancestry, descent, family, house, line, line of ancestors, strain, rank, file, line, row, range, tier, string, thread, team, suit, colonnade, continuous, continued, consecutive, progressive, gradual, serial, successive, immediate, unbroken, entire, linear, in a line, in a row, uninterrupted, unintermitting, unremitting, unrelenting (perseverence), perennial, evergreen, constant, continuously, seriatim, in a line, in succession, in turn, running, gradually, step by step, gradatim, at a stretch, in file, in column, in single file, in Indian file.

Periodicity

N regularity of recurrence, periodicity, intermittence, beat, oscillation, pulse, pulsation, rhythm, alternation, alternateness, alternativeness, alternity, bout, round, revolution, rotation, turn, say, anniversary, jubilee, centenary, catamenia, courses, menses, menstrual flux, rota, cycle, period, stated time, routine, days of the week, Sunday, Monday, months of the year, January, feast, fast, Christmas, Easter, New Year's day, Allhallows, Allhallowmas, All Saints' Day, All Souls', All Souls' Day, Ash Wednesday, bicentennial, birthday, bissextile, Candlemas, Dewali, groundhog day, Halloween, Hallowmas, Lady day, leap year, Midsummer day, Muharram, woodchuck day, St. Swithin's day, natal day, yearbook, yuletide, punctuality, regularity, steadiness, periodic, periodical, serial, recurrent, cyclical, rhythmical, recurring, intermittent, remittent, alternate, every other, hourly, diurnal, daily, quotidian, tertian, weekly, hebdomadal, hebdomadary, biweekly, fortnightly, bimonthly, catamenial, monthly, menstrual, yearly, annual, biennial, triennial, centennial, secular, paschal, lenten, regular, steady, punctual, regular as clockwork, periodically, at regular intervals, at stated times, at fixed established, at established periods, punctually, de die in diem, from day to day, day by day, by turns, in turn, in rotation, alternately, every other day, off and on, ride and tie, round and round.