Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Serra

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

SER'RA (πρίων). A saw; an iron toothed instrument for cutting wood. (Vitruv. i. 5. 7. Virg. Georg. i. 143. Senec. Ep. 90.) The saws of the ancients were made in the same manner, and possessed the same variety of forms and sizes, adapted to the nature of the work for which they were applied, as those now in use. The example (Serra/1.1) represents a frame-saw, of the kind used by sawyers for cutting timber into planks; the blade (lamina) is copied in detail from a sepulchral bas-relief; and the frame has been added through the rings at each of its extremities, upon the authority of a similar instrument roughly delineated on an Etruscan vase.

2. A saw for cutting stone, made of iron, but without teeth, like those still used by our stone-masons; the place of teeth being supplied by emery or very fine sand, by means of which even the hardest marbles, such as porphyry or granite, can be cut into slabs. Plin. H. N. xxxvi. 9.

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  Serra/1.1