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burning

burning

5 9.9
Damaging someone's skin on purpose with cigarettes or hot objects
  • noun
  • /ˈbɜrnɪŋ/
  • Offensive
translation icon : quemadura
  • The victim endured a horrific burning torture that left permanent scars on her skin.

Examples

  • Something pushed against the burning flesh.

    Fiction book (1992)
  • Smell of burning flesh.

  • The odd burning patterns, the victims being burned on the inside but not the out.

  • I also associate sex with the smell of burning flesh.

    Fiction book (2000)
  • We're talking about burning their skin, blinding their eyes.

  • You never talked about the barracks or the lice or the bunks or the smell of burning flesh.

  • He described the burning as a slow and agonizing experience that felt never-ending.

  • Witnesses reported the burning of the prisoner with cigarettes as a barbaric form of punishment.

Antonyms

81 2.9

That makes pain or worry feel less strong

2.6

That helps the body or mind become healthy again

Idioms

1 9.5

Asking someone if people have just been talking about them

Make the home warm and caring while someone is away

1 8.8

A sudden sense that people are talking about you, often when your name is said

1 9.0

You feel that people are talking about you when you are not there

9.9

To have a wild, loud party with dancing and music

Compounds

burning question
  • Informal
11 3.5

An urgent question that needs a quick answer

8 3.5

Using wood to make heat for a room or for cooking

A way of killing someone by tying them to a post and setting them on fire as punishment

burning bush
  • Literature
5 8.0

A bush on fire that God used to speak to Moses in the Bible

book burning
  • Offensive
2 7.2

Destroying books on purpose to stop political or religious ideas

clean-burning
  • Specialized
1 5.3

Produces little smoke or ash when burned

1 3.9

Using coal for heat or electricity

1 3.2

Making electricity or heat by using coal as fuel

A shrub with bright red or purple leaves used for decoration

burning bush
  • Specialized
9.1

A plant with white flowers that gives off a gas that can burn in hot weather

9.9

A period in Europe when many people accused of being witches are killed, often by burning at the stake

free burning
  • Specialized
8.3

A fire that keeps going in open air, often like an electric arc

A stick or cone that burns slowly and makes a pleasant smell

A log that gives steady heat for hours in a fire

A strong feeling of love or interest that grows slowly

A stove that controls the air so the fuel gives heat for many hours

Surface Forms

burning singular
burnings plural

Morphology

burning = burn (transparent) = burn + ing

This sense denotes a deliberate act of burning (torture) and is a straightforward nominalization of the verb.

Etymology

Burning comes from the old verb burn, meaning 'to set on fire', and it can describe deliberate damage to skin by hot objects because those injuries are made by the same burning action.