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burn

noun · verb

Simple meaning

A physical injury caused by heat, cold, electricity, radiation or caustic chemicals.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

burn
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈbɝn

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. A physical injury caused by heat, cold, electricity, radiation or caustic chemicals.

  2. A sensation resembling such an injury.

  3. The act of burning something with fire.

  4. Physical sensation in the muscles following strenuous exercise, caused by build-up of lactic acid.

  5. The operation or result of burning or baking, as in brickmaking.

  6. A short river in Norfolk, England, which flows into the North Sea.

verb

  1. Destroy by fire

    “They burned the house and his diaries.”

  2. transitive

    To cause to be consumed by fire.

  3. intransitive

    To be consumed by fire, or in flames.

  4. transitive

    To overheat so as to make unusable.

  5. intransitive

    To become overheated to the point of being unusable.

  6. transitive

    To injure (a person or animal) with heat or chemicals that produce similar damage.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A2 · Elementary (estimated)
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A physical injury caused by heat, cold, electricity, radiation or caustic chemicals.

Used this way, burn is a reasonably familiar word with a faintly unfavourable edge. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Slightly negative
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Moderate
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Critical or judgemental
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Nearby words

  • sting , a specialist term, precise but narrower

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use burn

  • “They burned the house and his diaries.”verb
  • “The sun burned off the fog.”verb

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • burningnounInflected form

    The act of burning something.

  • burnernounInflected form

    An apparatus for burning fuel (or refuse).

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • burn offverbCompound term

    Use up (energy).

  • burn marknounCompound term

    A place or area that has been burned (especially on a person's body).

  • burn downverbCompound term

    Burn completely.

  • burn centernounCompound term

    A center where patients with severe burns can be treated.

  • burning at the stakenounCompound term

    Execution by fire.

  • burn outverbCompound term

    Melt, break, or become otherwise unusable.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: destroy by fire

burn up

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.