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Glite Dictionary
🌞 Skin damage 🍏 Plant damage 🔥 To damage by sun
to sunscald

to sunscald

8.6
To damage plants or surfaces by long, strong sunlight
  • verb
  • /ˈsʌnˌskɔld/
translation icon : quemar por el sol
  • Gardeners often use cloth to prevent young plants from being sunscalded during hot afternoons.

Examples

  • If you remove the tree's lower branches too quickly, the bark may sunscald in the summer heat.

  • Leaving your car outside all day can sunscald the dashboard and fade the upholstery.

  • Don't sunscald the new plants!

  • The sun can sunscald your plants.

  • To protect the delicate seedlings, we covered them with shade cloth to prevent them from being sunscalded by the strong afternoon sun.

  • If the potted plants are left in direct sunlight for too long, they can easily sunscald and suffer irreversible damage.

  • During the heatwave, it is essential to water the garden regularly to avoid letting the leaves sunscald under the intense heat.

Antonyms

to protect
∞ 1.0

To keep someone or something safe from harm

How Damaged

to destroy
∞ 1.0
to sunscald
8.6
to scorch
20 3.5
to fade
531 1.2

Surface Forms

sunscald infinitive
sunscalded past
sunscalded past participle
sunscalding present participle
sunscalds third person singular

Morphology

sunscald = sun + scald (semi-transparent) = sun + scald

The word is a clear compound of 'sun' and 'scald', but the plant-damage sense is a specialized extension rather than a fully literal reading.

Etymology

Sunscald used as a verb keeps the same parts, sun and scald ('to burn'), so to sunscald a plant or surface is to burn or damage it by long, strong sun.