/sear"eez/ , n. , pl. series , adj.
n.
1. a group or a number of related or similar things, events, etc., arranged or occurring in temporal, spatial, or other order or succession; sequence.
2. a number of games, contests, or sporting events, with the same participants, considered as a unit: The two baseball clubs played a five-game series.
3. a set, as of coins or stamps.
4. a set of successive volumes or issues of a periodical published in like form with similarity of subject or purpose.
5. Radio and Television.
a. a daily or weekly program with the same cast and format and a continuing story, as a soap opera, situation comedy, or drama.
b. a number of related programs having the same theme, cast, or format: a series of four programs on African wildlife.
6. Math.
a. a sequence of terms combined by addition, as 1 + 1 / 2 + 1 / 4 + 1 / 8 + ... 1 / 2 n.
b. See infinite series .
7. Rhet. a succession of coordinate sentence elements.
8. Geol. a division of stratified rocks that is of next higher rank to a stage and next lower rank to a system, comprising deposits formed during part of a geological epoch.
9. Elect. an end-to-end arrangement of the components, as resistors, in a circuit so that the same current flows through each component. Cf. parallel (def. 13).
10. Chem. a group of related chemical elements arranged in order of increasing atomic number: the lanthanide series.
adj.
11. Elect. consisting of or having component parts connected in series: a series circuit; a series generator.
[ 1605-15; series; akin to serere to connect ]
Syn. 1. SERIES, SEQUENCE, SUCCESSION are terms for an orderly following of things one after another. SERIES is applied to a number of things of the same kind, usually related to each other, arranged or happening in order: a series of baseball games. SEQUENCE stresses the continuity in time, thought, cause and effect, etc.: The scenes came in a definite sequence. SUCCESSION implies that one thing is followed by another or others in turn, usually though not necessarily with a relation or connection between them: succession to a throne; a succession of calamities.