serial killer









serial killer


noun

  1. anything published, broadcast, etc., in short installments at regular intervals, as a novel appearing in successive issues of a magazine.
  2. Library Science. a publication in any medium issued in successive parts bearing numerical or chronological designation and intended to be continued indefinitely.

adjective

  1. published in installments or successive parts: a serial story.
  2. pertaining to such publication.
  3. pertaining to, arranged in, or consisting of a series.
  4. occurring in a series rather than simultaneously: serial marriage; serial murders.
  5. effecting or producing a series of similar actions: The police think a serial killer is responsible for five homicides in this city last month.
  6. Computers.
    1. of or relating to the apparent or actual performance of data-processing operations one at a time (distinguished from parallel).
    2. of or relating to the transmission or processing of each part of a whole in sequence, as each bit of a byte or each byte of a computer word (distinguished from parallel).
  7. Music. of, relating to, or composed in serial technique.

noun

  1. a person who carries out a series of murders

noun

  1. a novel, play, etc, presented in separate instalments at regular intervals
  2. a publication, usually regularly issued and consecutively numbered

adjective

  1. of, relating to, or resembling a series
  2. published or presented as a serial
  3. of or relating to such publication or presentation
  4. computing of or operating on items of information, instructions, etc, in the order in which they occurCompare parallel (def. 5)
  5. of, relating to, or using the techniques of serialism
  6. logic maths (of a relation) connected, transitive, and asymmetric, thereby imposing an order on all the members of the domain, as less than on the natural numbersSee also ordering

adj.“coming in regular succession,” 1840, from series + -al (1); popularized in reference to Dickens’ novels, published one part at a time in periodicals (as opposed to all at once in a book). Found to be a useful word and given wide application. Serial number, indicating position in a series, first recorded 1866, originally of papers, packages, etc.; of soldiers from 1918. Serial killer is first attested 1981 (in relation to John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy), though serial had been used in connection with murders since the early 1960s. Related: Serially. n.1846, from serial (adj.).

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