Sear or seer?
sear is an adjective meaning “Dry; withered, especially of vegetation”; seer is a noun meaning “One who foretells the future; a clairvoyant, prophet, soothsayer or diviner”. Use sear as an adjective and seer as a noun (sear is also a noun: “A scar produced by searing”). They sound the same (/sɪə̯(ɹ)/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) seer is about 2.0 times as common as sear.
What is the difference between sear and seer?
| sear | seer | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective, verb, noun | noun |
| Meaning | Dry; withered, especially of vegetation To char, scorch, or burn the surface of (something) with a hot instrument To wither; to dry up | One who foretells the future; a clairvoyant, prophet, soothsayer or diviner One who sees something; an eyewitness |
| Example | He likes to sear his steaks while maintaining rareness at the center | none recorded |
| Forms | searer, searest | seers |
| Pronunciation | /sɪə̯(ɹ)/ /sɪː(ɹ)/ /sɪɹ/ | /sɪə(ɹ)/ /ˈsiːə(ɹ)/ /ˈsiːɐ/ |
| In writing | about once in every 2 million words | 1.0 times per million words |
Sources: sear and seer in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of sear and seer
sear
- 1
Dry; withered, especially of vegetation
- 2
To char, scorch, or burn the surface of (something) with a hot instrument
He likes to sear his steaks while maintaining rareness at the center
- 3
A scar produced by searing
- 4
Part of a gun that retards the hammer until the trigger is pulled
- 5
To wither; to dry up
- 6
To make callous or insensible
- 7
To mark permanently, as if by burning
The events of that day were seared into her memory
seer
- 1
One who foretells the future; a clairvoyant, prophet, soothsayer or diviner
- 2
Alternative form of sihr
- 3
Initialism of seasonal energy efficiency ratio
- 4
One who sees something; an eyewitness
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, sear or seer?
sear appears about once in every 2 million words; seer 1.0 times per million words.
sear about once in every 2 million wordsseer 1.0 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search sear vs seer?
“sear vs seer” is searched about 140 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“seer vs sear”, “sear or seer”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.