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Order and ritual are very important in the seder—so important that they are even reflected in its name: the English word seder is a transliteration of the Hebrew word sēdher, meaning “order.” The courses in the meal, as well as blessings, prayers, stories, and songs, are recorded in the Haggadah, a book that lays out the order of the Passover feast and recounts the story of Exodus. Each food consumed as part of the seder recalls an aspect of the Israelites’ 13th century BCE exodus from Egypt. For instance, matzo (unleavened bread) represents the haste with which the Israelites fled; maror (a mix of bitter herbs) recalls the bitterness of enslaved life; and a mixture of fruits and nuts called charoset (also rendered as charoses or haroset/haroses) symbolizes the clay or mortar the Israelites worked with during their Egyptian enslavement.
Examples of seder in a Sentence
Big Think, 23 Sep. 2025
Malka | 2025 | United States | Stacey Maltin | Midwest Premiere | Malka, a Holocaust survivor, starts to see visions of her life at the camps during a present-day family seder.
—Matthew Carey, Deadline, 25 June 2025
Just six weeks ago, the home of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was firebombed as his family slept after celebrating the first Passover seder.
—Jonathan Greenblatt, Time, 23 May 2025
In 1968, activists posing as Swiss tourists used the seder as a pretense for re-establishing a permanent Jewish presence in Hebron, three decades after the last of the city’s Jews fled following massacres.
—Deborah Danan, Sun Sentinel, 2 May 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Seder.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/seder. Accessed 3 Nov. 2025.
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