sierra

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si·er·ra

(sē-ĕr′ə)

1. A rugged range of mountains having an irregular or jagged profile.

2. Any of several mackerels of the genus Scomberomorus, especially S. sierra of warm Pacific coastal waters of the Americas.

[Spanish, saw, sierra, from Latin serra, saw.]

si·er′ran adj.

Word History: In English, the word sierra is probably best known for the names of certain mountain ranges, such as the Sierra Nevada (in Spanish, the "snowy sierra") of Spain, the similarly named Sierra Nevada of Eastern California, and the Sierra Madre (the "mother sierra") of Mexico. The English word sierra, "rugged range of mountains having an irregular or jagged profile," is a borrowing of Spanish sierra. In Spanish, sierra literally means "saw," but the word is also used in the extended meaning "line or group of mountains with a jagged profile." As a further example of how a word meaning "saw" can become a word meaning "mountain range," we need only mention the Sawtooth Mountains of central Idaho.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

sierra

(sɪˈɛərə)

(Physical Geography) a range of mountains with jagged peaks, esp in Spain or America

[C17: from Spanish, literally: saw, from Latin serra; see serrate]

siˈerran adj

Sierra

(sɪˈɛərə)

(Telecommunications) communications a code word for the letter s

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

si•er•ra

(siˈɛr ə)

n., pl. -ras.

a chain of hills or mountains, the peaks of which suggest the teeth of a saw.

[1590–1600; < Sp: literally, saw]

si·er·ra

(sē-ĕr′ə)

A high, rugged range of mountains having an irregular outline somewhat like the teeth of a saw.

The American Heritage® Student Science Dictionary, Second Edition. Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

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Noun	1.	sierra - a range of mountains (usually with jagged peaks and irregular outline)
	2.	sierra - a Spanish mackerel of western North America Scomberomorus sierra Spanish mackerel - any of several large marine food fishes of the genus Scomberomorus

Translations

Salme

Sakari

sierra

n → Sierra f

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

References in classic literature ?

To me the place was a vision of the Sierras. The tall, gray mountains that back it, their sides bristling with pines--cloven with ravines--here and there a hoary rock towering into view--long, straight streaks sweeping down from the summit to the sea, marking the passage of some avalanche of former times--all these were as like what one sees in the Sierras as if the one were a portrait of the other.

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She remembered her mother's tale of how the promised land looked to them as their battered wagons and weary oxen dropped down through the early winter snows of the Sierras to the vast and flowering sun-land of California: In fancy, herself a child of nine, she looked down from the snowy heights as her mother must have looked down.

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THE TEMPERATURE of the regions west of the Rocky Mountains is much milder than in the same latitudes on the Atlantic side; the upper plains, however, which lie at a distance from the sea-coast, are subject in winter to considerable vicissitude; being traversed by lofty "sierras," crowned with perpetual snow, which often produce flaws and streaks of intense cold This was experienced by Captain Bonneville and his companions in their progress westward.

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We are at the mercy of very variable winds; but I should think myself fortunate were we to strike it between Sierra Leone and Portendick.

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I believe it would not have been always comfortable to know Mendoza outside of his books; he was rather a terrible person; he was one of the Spanish invaders of Italy, and is known in Italian history as the Tyrant of Sierra. But at my distance of time and place I could safely revel in his friendship, and as an author I certainly found him a most charming companion.

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But then the Nautilus swerved again, and sought the lowest depth of a submarine valley which is between this Cape and Sierra Leone on the African coast.

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Vasconcelles, Jesuit father, describes one which he heard in the Sierra, or mountain region of Piratininga, and which he compares to the discharges of a park of artillery.

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They are found as far north as the Sierra Tapalguen (lat.

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If he wasn't great, would he have charge of the law business of the Sierra Mills, of the Erston Land Syndicate, of the Berkeley Consolidated, of the Oakland, San Leandro, and Pleasanton Electric?

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"It seems to me, Sancho- and it is impossible it can be otherwise- that some strayed traveller must have crossed this sierra and been attacked and slain by footpads, who brought him to this remote spot to bury him."

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Not content with manufacturing the electricity for his street railways in the old-fashioned way, in power-houses, Daylight organized the Sierra and Salvador Power Company.

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Here, in Sierra Vista, which was the name of Judge Scott's place, White Fang quickly began to make himself at home.