"Of files or ranks of armed men: Pressed close together, shoulder to shoulder, in close order."

Jephson's 1859 Brittany uses this word thus:

"The French ranks were so serried that ... you could not throw an apple but it would fall upon a helmet or a lance" (xii. 192).

This discussion is based on the definition of the word serried in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which requires a little explanation.

To Act I or Act II of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado.

To the homepage of this Mikado website.

Suggestions, contributions, criticisms, questions? Email Sharon Cogdill.