Definition of "sear"

There are in all but three vvayes of going thither [to the moon]. […] [The] third, Old Empedocles vvay; vvho vvhen he leaped into Ætna, having a drie ſeare bodie, and light, the ſmoake took him and vvhift him up into the Moone, vvhere he lives yet vvaving up and dovvne like a feather, all foot and embers comming out of that cole-pit; our Poet met him, and talkt vvith him.

1620 January 17 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), Benjamin Jonson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “Newes from the New World Discover’d in the Moon. A Masque, […]”, in The Workes of Benjamin Jonson. The Second Volume. […] (Second Folio), London: […] Richard Meighen, published 1640–1641, page 42

The autumn winds rushing / Waft the leaves that are searest, / But our flower was in flushing, / When blighting was nearest.

1810, Walter Scott, “Canto III. The Gathering.”, in The Lady of the Lake; […], Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for John Ballantyne and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, and William Miller, stanza XVI, page 118

I will sear the skin from your flesh. You will die a thousand deaths!

2001, Ben Stivers, Wrath of Magic, page 123

When you drop the tuna onto the pan, the outside will sear and cook quickly while leaving as much of the center as possible in its raw state.

2010, Jeff Potter, Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food, page 180

I often will sear steaks, move them to a cooler side, then use the hot side to grill or sauté vegetables, make a sauce in a cast-iron skillet, or grill some fruit for dessert while the steak finishes.

2016, Melissa Cookston, Smokin' Hot in the South, page 12

The drought was so severe as to sear the grass and the leaves of maple trees which had grown well for two years, standing in sward land by the roadside, and yet the corn, within ten feet, on the subsoiled land, did not roll once in the whole season, even at mid-day, and there was scarcely another piece in the neighborhood which escaped serious injury.

1852 May, Henry F. French, “Some Remarks on Subsoil Plowing”, in The New England Farmer, volume 4, number 5, page 231

The spring and summer of 1936 brought to the Great Plains one of those terrible periodic droughts that sear the crops and convert the “short-grass country” into a desert.

1971, Chapters From the American Experience, page 277

The early morning sun had begun to sear the grass.

2014, Bernard N. Lee, Jr., Michele Barand, A Look Back in Time, page 50

She might just as easily have been a goddess of the harvest, since the ancient Greeks sowed in the fall and reaped in the spring before the dry heat of summer could sear the crops in the fields.

2018, Michael Furie, Peg Aloi, JD Hortwort, Llewellyn's 2019 Sabbats Almanac