burn meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

burn

noun

UK /bɜːn/ · US /bɝn/

Etymology

From Middle English barnin, bearne, beerne, beornen, berne, bernen, birne, burne, burnen, bærnen, which arose via the metathesis of branne, brennen, brennyn, brynne, from Old English beornan, biernan, birnan, byrnan, from Proto-West Germanic *brinnan, from Proto-Germanic *brinnaną (“to burn”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrenw-, present stem from *bʰrewh₁- (“to boil; to brew”). The East Midland forms were heavily influenced by Old Norse brenna, brinna (“to burn”). Doublet of brew. The late metathesis of East Midland brin- to birn- (and subsequently burn-) parallels the phonological development of bird and dirt from brid and drit. As this metathesized form became the Chancery Standard, it completely displaced the semantic functions and weak conjugation paradigm of the native Old English bærnan (weak), alongside the surviving remnants of byrnan (strong). Cognates Cognate with Cimbrian prönnan (“to burn”), Dutch barnen, branden (“to burn”), German brinnen (“to burn”), Luxembourgish brennen (“to burn”), Vilamovian brīn (“to burn”), Yiddish ברענען (brenen, “to burn”), Danish brænde (“to burn”), Faroese and Icelandic brenna (“to burn”), Norwegian Bokmål brenne (“to burn”), Norwegian Nynorsk brenna, brenne (“to burn”), Swedish brinna (“to burn”), Gothic 𐌱𐍂𐌹𐌽𐌽𐌰𐌽 (brinnan, “to burn”); also Cornish bros (“blazing, boiling”), Irish bruth (“heat; eruption; surf”), Welsh brwd (“eager, keen; passionate, zealous”), Latin defrutum (“grape must reduced by boiling”), Ancient Greek πορφύρω (porphúrō, “to boil, heave”), Albanian burth (“Cyclamen hederifolium; mouth burning”), Armenian աղբյուր (aġbyur, “fountain, spring”), Sanskrit भुर्वन् (bhurvan, “runnel, spring”). More at brew.

11 senses

1A physical injury caused by heat, cold, electricity…
2A sensation resembling such an injury.
3The act of burning something with fire.
4An intense non-physical sting, as left by shame or an…
5An effective insult, often in the expression sick burn…
6Physical sensation in the muscles following strenuous…
7Tobacco.
8The writing of data to a permanent storage medium like a…
9The operation or result of burning or baking, as in brickmaking.
10A disease in vegetables; brand.
11The firing of a spacecraft's rockets in order to change…

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

She had second-degree burns from falling in the bonfire.
He burnt his hand in the fire.

A sensation resembling such an injury.

chili burn from eating hot peppers

The act of burning something with fire.

They’re doing a controlled burn of the fields.
One typical Grecian kiln engorged one thousand muleloads of juniper wood in a single burn.2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion:

Slang An intense non-physical sting, as left by shame or an effective insult.

Slang An effective insult, often in the expression sick burn (excellent or badass insult).

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

One and, two and, keep moving; feel the burn!

UK, Slang Tobacco.

TOM: I’m serious bruv. Put my burn and lighter and all that in my jeans please and give them here, then press the cell bell.2002, Tom Wickham, “A Day In The Wrong Life”, in Julian Broadhead, Laura Kerr, editors, Prison Writing, 16th edition, Waterside Press, →ISBN, page 26:
“Any of you want to borrow some burn,” asked a scarred inmate known as Bull.2006, S. Drake, A Cry for Help, Chipmunkapublishing ltd, →ISBN, Chapter 7, page 94:

2 more examples

It was like no one was looking out for me, and the older kids used to take the piss ...they were always threatening me and taking my burn [tobacco][…]2006, Peter Squires, editor, Community Safety: Critical Perspectives on Policy and Practice, Policy Press, →ISBN, page 23:
As the prison week ended and the less careful inmates began to run out of burn they went through a peculiar begging ritual that I, never one to husband resources either, was quick to learn.2010, Stephen Fry, The Fry Chronicles:

Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences The writing of data to a permanent storage medium like a compact disc or a ROM chip.

Allow additional burns enables you to create a multisession CD, which can be used again to write more data.2003, Maria Langer, Mac OS X 10.2 Advanced, page 248:

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

They have a good burn.

A disease in vegetables; brand.

Aerospace, Business, Engineering, Natural sciences, Physical sciences The firing of a spacecraft's rockets in order to change its course.

On 4 March 1999, the MCO performed its second course correction manoeuvre with a burn involving its four thrusters […]2004, David Baker, Jane's Space Directory, page 529:

Derived terms: 93 terms
afterburn, backburn, back-burn, back burn, beard burn, burger burn, burn bag, burn-baited, burn barrel, burn-beat, burn building, burn center, burn-clearing, burnie, burn-in, burnlike, burn notice, burn-out, burnover, burn pavement, burn phone, burn pit, burnproof, burn rate, burn time, burn unit, burnup, burny, carpet burn, chemical burn, Chinese burn, churn and burn, cigarette burn, controlled burn, cool burn, cryoburn, dad burn, deorbit burn, do a slow burn, feel the burn, first-degree burn, flash burn, flash-burn, fourth-degree burn, freeburn, freezer burn, friction burn, frost burn, frostburn, full-burn, hazard reduction burn, heartburn, heart-burn, ice burn, Indian burn, lean-burn, lean burn, limeburner, millipede burn, moonburn, moorburn, mowburn, nonburn, noseburn, outburn, overburn, postburn, powder burn, powder-burn, preburn, prescribed burn, proof of burn, rainburn, raster burn, razor burn, road burn, rope burn, rugburn, Rx burn, screen burn, screenburn, second-degree burn, sick burn, sideburn, sideburns, slow burn, slow-burn, suicide burn, sunburn, third-degree burn, underburn, welder's burn, windburn

burn

verb

Etymology

28 senses

1To cause to be consumed by fire.
2To be consumed by fire, or in flames.
3To overheat so as to make unusable.
4To become overheated to the point of being unusable.
5To make or produce by the application of fire or burning heat.
6To give off light; to be lit up.
7To injure (a person or animal) with heat or chemicals…
8To cauterize.
9To sunburn.
10To consume, damage, or change the condition of, as if by…
11To be hot, e.g. due to embarrassment.
12To cause to combine with oxygen or other active agent…
13To combine energetically, with evolution of heat.
14To write data to a permanent storage medium like a…
15To render subtitles into a video's content while…
16To betray.
17To insult or defeat.
18To waste (time); to waste money or other resources.
19In certain games, to approach near to a concealed object…
20To accidentally touch a moving stone.
21In pontoon, to swap a pair of cards for another pair, or…
22To make an area of an image darker (when processing…
23To be converted to another element in a nuclear fusion…
24To discard.
25To shoot someone with a firearm.
26To compromise (an agent's cover story).
27To blackmail.
28To desire or ache for (something); to focus on attaining…

To cause to be consumed by fire.

He burned his manuscript in the fireplace.
They haue ſlayne my baylye⸝ and diſtroyed the houſes of my men⸝ banyſſhed and chaſed away myne offycers, and brent yͤ houſe in the worlde that I loued beſt.1523 February 7 (Gregorian calendar), Johan Froyssart [i.e., Jean Froissart], “Howe The Englysshmen that were Sent in to Bretayne⸝ were Tourmented on the See: And Howe the Gaũtoise Desyred to haue the Erle of Flaunders Their Lorde⸝ to Cõe Dwell in Their Towne of Gaunt”, in Here Begynneth the First Volum of Sir Johan Froyssart: Of the Cronycles of Englande⸝ Fraunce⸝ Spayne⸝ Portyngale⸝ Scotlande⸝ Bretayne⸝ Flañders: And Other Places Adioynynge. […], 1st volume, London: […] Richarde Pynson⸝ […], →OCLC; reprinted as The First Volum of Sir Johan Froyssart of the Chronycles of Englande⸝ Fraunce⸝ Spayne (The English Experience […]; no. 257), Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum; New York, N.Y.: Da Capo Press, 1970, →ISBN, folio ccxxxiii, recto:

3 more examples

On July 1, 1402, when the Prince of Yen reached P’u-k’ou (in Kiangsu), Sheng Yung and his imperial troops attacked him and attempted to burn his boats.⁹⁶1976, David B. Chan, “The Fall of Nanking”, in The Usurpation of the Prince of Yen, 1398-1402 (Chinese Materials and Research Aids Service Center, Inc. Occasional Series), number 7, San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center, Inc., →OCLC, page 83:
Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia. The cheapest way to clear logged woodland is to burn it, producing an acrid cloud of foul white smoke that, carried by the wind, can cover hundreds, or even thousands, of square miles.2013 June 29, “Unspontaneous combustion”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, London: The Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 29:
I've never been on top of the latest trends. When everyone was burning CDs I was still burning books.2017 April 30, Norm Macdonald Live, season 3, episode 12, spoken by Norm Macdonald:

To be consumed by fire, or in flames.

He watched the house burn.
Plastics are energy-rich substances, which is why many of them burn so readily. Any organism that could unlock and use that energy would do well in the Anthropocene. Terrestrial bacteria and fungi which can manage this trick are already familiar to experts in the field.2013 July 20, “Welcome to the plastisphere”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845, London: The Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC:

To overheat so as to make unusable.

He burned the toast. The blacksmith burned the steel.
with a heavy fire in the fire box there would be great danger of overheating, and thus injuring the boiler or of "burning" it, as it is ordinarily termed.1874, Railroad Gazette, volume 6, page 352:

To become overheated to the point of being unusable.

The grill was too hot and the steak burned.

To make or produce by the application of fire or burning heat.

to burn a hole; to burn letters into a block
I posted myself near a place where they had been burning charcoal, and very soon the hare came running past, close to where I was standing.1881, P. Chr. Asbjörnsen [i.e., Peter Christen Asbjørnsen], translated by H. L. Brækstad, Round the Yule Log. Norwegian Folk and Fairy Tales, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, →OCLC, page 78:

To give off light; to be lit up.

I knew that if a light was burning I should be able to see the window lit up from the yard at the back, although the gas itself would be out of sight.1923, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], “(please specify the page)”, in The Eyes of Max Carrados, London: Grant Richards, →OCLC:

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

She burned the child with an iron, and was jailed for ten years.

Medicine, Sciences, Surgery To cauterize.

Ambitransitive To sunburn.

She forgot to put on sunscreen and burned.

To consume, damage, or change the condition of, as if by action of fire or heat; to affect as fire or heat does.

to burn the mouth with pepper
This tyrant fever burns me up.c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii]:

2 more examples

This dry sorrow burns up all my tears.1681, John Dryden, The Spanish Fryar: Or, the Double Discovery. […], London: […] Richard Tonson and Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, (please specify the page number):
You are jealous and covet [what others have] and your desires go unfulfilled; [so] you become murderers. [To hate is to murder as far as your hearts are concerned.] You burn with envy and anger and are not able to obtain [the gratification, the contentment, and the happiness that you seek], so you fight and war. You do not have, because you do not ask.1965, Amplified Bible, James 4:2:

To be hot, e.g. due to embarrassment.

The child’s forehead was burning with fever. Her cheeks burned with shame.
In ſlumbers oft for fere I quake / For hete & cold I burne & ſhake / For lake of ſlepe my hede dothe ake / What menys thysa. 1542, Thomas Wyatt, “What menythe thys” in the Devonshire Manuscript, folio 12 verso

Chemistry, Natural sciences, Physical sciences To cause to combine with oxygen or other active agent, with evolution of heat; to consume; to oxidize.

to burn iron in oxygen
A human being burns a certain amount of carbon at each respiration.

Chemistry, Natural sciences, Physical sciences Dated To combine energetically, with evolution of heat.

Copper burns in chlorine.

Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences To write data to a permanent storage medium like a compact disc or a ROM chip.

We’ll burn this program onto an EEPROM one hour before the demo begins.
At first they didn’t do anything by design, beyond writing songs and gigging around Sheffield, distributing homemade demo CDs at shows. Their canny friends burned copies to leave on buses, but more importantly, uploaded them to filesharing sites and set up a MySpace page.2015 October 22, Laura Snapes, “How Arctic Monkeys’ debut single changed the music industry and ‘killed the NME’”, in The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC:

1 more example

I've never been on top of the latest trends. When everyone was burning CDs I was still burning books.2017 April 30, Norm Macdonald Live, season 3, episode 12, spoken by Norm Macdonald:

Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences Broadly To render subtitles into a video's content while transcoding it, making the subtitles part of the image (hardsubs).

My old DVD player could play DivX files but didn't recognize the subtitle file, so I had to burn them in.

Slang To betray.

The informant burned him.

Slang To insult or defeat.

I just burned you again.

To waste (time); to waste money or other resources.

We have an hour to burn.
The company has burned more than a million dollars a month this year.

1 more example

Oh, why don’t you save all the money you earn? / If I didn’t eat, I’d have money to burn.c. 1897, anonymous (lyrics and music), “Hallelujah, I’m a Bum”

In certain games, to approach near to a concealed object which is sought.

You’re cold… warm… hot… you’re burning!
Not being accustomed to make fine distinctions, or to appreciate magnanimity, they read his letters and speeches as if they read them not. They were not aware when they approached a heroic statement,—they did not know when they burned.1860, Henry David Thoreau, The Last Days of John Brown:

Ball games, Curling, Games, Hobbies, Lifestyle, Sports To accidentally touch a moving stone.

Card games, Games In pontoon, to swap a pair of cards for another pair, or to deal a dead card.

Arts, Broadcasting, Film, Hobbies, Lifestyle, Media, Photography, Television, Videography To make an area of an image darker (when processing photographs in a darkroom, this is accomplished by increasing the exposure of that area to light).

Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Physics Of an element To be converted to another element in a nuclear fusion reaction, especially in a star.

Card games, Gambling, Games Slang To discard.

Slang To shoot someone with a firearm.

Espionage, Government, Military, Politics, War To compromise (an agent's cover story).

He had already burned his cover with Mrs. Phillips, and it was not a mistake he intended to make again.2011, Thomas H. Cook, Night Secrets:
Eventually they'd report back to Ryker, and he still didn't know if Ryker had personally burned his cover and sent assassins after him, or if the SSU had a mole. Until he knew for certain, he had to play this safe.2013, Vanessa Kier, Vengeance: The SSU Book 1:

Espionage, Government, Military, Politics, War To blackmail.

"How does Leipzig burn him precisely?" Enderby insisted. "What's the pressure? Dirty pix—well, okay. Karla's a puritan, so's Kirov. But I mean, Christ, this isn't the fifties, is it? […]1979, John le Carré, Smiley's People:

US, Slang To desire or ache for (something); to focus on attaining (something).

Synonyms: burn, combust, forburn, go up, outburn, torch
Derived terms: 68 terms
aburn, are your ears burning, burnability, burnable, burn a hole in someone's pocket, burn away, burn, baby, burn, burn book, burn bread, Burn Bridge, burn coal, burn daylight, burn down, burner, burn in, burn in hell, burn-mouth-vine, burn off, burn one down, burn one's boats, burn one's bridges, burn one's candle at both ends, burn one's fingers, burn one's toast, burnout, burn out, burn rubber, burn someone at the stake, burn someone's ass, burn someone's ears, burn that bridge when one comes to it, burn the candle at both ends, burn the coal, burn the coal, pay the toll, burn the midnight oil, burn the roof, burn the water, burn-the-wind, burn through, burn time, burn to a crisp, burnt toast theory, burn up, crash and burn, dump and burn, ears are burning, ever-burning, forburn, get one's fingers burnt, inburn, I've burned myself, I've burnt myself, keep the home fires burning, long-burning, money to burn, overburn, preburn, reburn, Rome wasn't burned in a day, slash and burn, slash-and-burn, slow-burning, to burn, turn or burn, two lamps burning and no ship at sea, unburn, underburn, watch the world burn
Related terms: brimstone, combust, kindle
Hypernyms: happen, worsen
Hyponyms: blaze up, burn to a crisp, burn away, burn down, burn off, burn up, cinder, deflagrate, incinerate, flare up, flicker, singe, smolder, smother, sweal

burn

noun

Etymology

From Northern Middle English burn, from Old English burne, burna (“spring, fountain”), Proto-West Germanic *brunnō, from Proto-Germanic *brunnô, *brunō. Cognate with Scots burn (“stream”), Cimbrian, Mòcheno prunn (“well, spring”), Dutch bron (“well”), German Bronnen, Brun, Brunnen (“well”), Luxembourgish Buer, Bur (“well”), Yiddish ברונעם (brunem, “well”), Danish brønd (“well”), Faroese brunnur, bruður (“well”), Icelandic brunnur (“well”), Norwegian Bokmål, Scanian brønn (“well”), Norwegian Nynorsk brunn, brønn (“well”), Swedish brunn (“well”), Gothic 𐌱𐍂𐌿𐌽𐌽𐌰 (brunna, “source, wellspring”), Crimean Gothic brunna (“spring, fountain, source”). Also Albanian burim (“spring, fountain”), Ancient Greek φρέαρ (phréar, “well, reservoir”), Old Armenian աղբիւր (ałbiwr, “fount”). Doublet of bourn. More at brew.

Northern England, Scotland A large stream.

This darksome burn, horseback brown, / His rollrock highroad roaring down, / In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam / Flutes and low to the lake falls home.1881, Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Inversnaid”, in Robert Bridges, editor, Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins: Now First Published […], London: Humphrey Milford, published 1918, →OCLC, stanza 1, page 53:
He may pitch on some tuft of lilacs over a burn, and smoke innumerable pipes to the tune of the water on the stones.1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque:

2 more examples

At this place, the clay in the 52 ft. embankment had been under water pressure for some weeks before the water level could be lowered, and the burn diverted through a temporary culvert.1950 October, “Completion of Flood-Damage Repairs, East Coast Main Line”, in Railway Magazine, pages 708-709:
When it was too heavy rain the burn ran very high and wide and ye could never jump it.2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin, published 2009, page 105:

Derived terms: Burn Bridge, Burnmouth, Burnside
Related terms: bourn

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.

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