Word.ws English Dictionary

ash

/ˈæʃ/

ash noun: the solid remains of a fire. Also the alternative form of aush.

ash: the solid remains of a fire
Image: tarotastic on Flickr, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

ash (countable and uncountable, plural ashes)

  1. The solid remains of a fire.
    • The audience was more captivated by the growing ash at the end of his cigarette than by his words.
    • Ash from a fireplace can restore minerals to your garden's soil.
  2. The nonaqueous remains of a material subjected to any complete oxidation process.
  3. Fine particles from a volcano, volcanic ash.
  4. (in plural) Human (or animal) remains after cremation.
    • The urn containing his ashes was eventually removed to a closet.
  5. (archaic, in plural) Mortal remains in general.
    • Napoleon’s ashes are not yet extinguished, and we’re breathing in their sparks.
    Synonyms:
    cremains
  6. (figuratively) The aftermath or remains of a catastrophe.
    • Now, it's Haiti that needs help to rebuild and rise from the ashes [of an earthquake].2010 May 6, Jean-Claude Laguerre, “Haiti Will Rise From the Ashes”, in The Epoch Times
  7. A gray color, similar to that of the remains of a fire.
  8. The resultant remaining more stable patterns that emerge from the evolution of a soup or a similarly random pattern.

Verb

ash (third-person singular simple present ashes, present participle ashing, simple past and past participle ashed)

  1. (ambitransitive) To reduce to a residue of ash. See ashing.
    • I dried the extracted leather very slowly on the steam bath […] until the substance was dry enough to ash. […] I think that the discrepancy in the percentages of "total ash" by method No. 2 and No. 6 is due to this excessive heat required to ash the leather […]1919, Harry Gordon, Total Soluble and Insoluble Ash in Leather, published in the Journal of the American Leather Chemists Association, W. K. Alsop and W. A. Fox, eds, volume XIV, number 1, on page 253
    • The inorganic material left after ashing lung tissue specimens not only contains inhaled particles but also very large quantities of inorganic residue derived from the tissue itself.1981, Hans Weill, Margaret Turner-Warwick, and Claude Lenfant, eds, Occupational Lung Diseases: Research Approaches and Methods, Lung Biology in Health and disease, volume 18, page 203
  2. (Australia, ambitransitive) To hit the end off (a burning cigar or cigarette).
    • "Nonsense," Mrs. Gardiner challenged, ashing her cigarette.1936, F.J. Thwaites, The Redemption, Sydney: H. John Edwards Publishing, published 1940, page 62
    • He realized that he was standing staring at her and he sat down quickly, making a business of ashing his cigarette.1961, Kenneth Cook, Wake in Fright, published 1988, page ii. 52
  3. (transitive, chiefly passive voice) To mark (someone) with an ashen cross on the forehead to observe Ash Wednesday.
  4. (obsolete, chiefly passive voice) To cover newly-sown fields of crops with ashes.
    • Last spring, after I planted, I took what ashes I have saved during the last year, and put on my corn […] . On harvesting I cut up the two rows which were not ashed (or twenty rods of them,) and set them apart from the others in stouts; and then I cut up two rows of the same length, on each side...1847, H., Ashes on Corn.---An Experiment, published in the Genesee Farmer, volume 8, page 281
    • After the corn was planted, upon acre A, I spread broadcast one hundred bushels of lime, (cost $3) and fifty bushels of ashes, (cost $6.) […] The extra crop of the combination over the limed acre or ashed, was paid by the increased crop, […]1849, in a letter to James Higgins, published in 1850 in The American Farmer, volume V, number 7, pages 227-8

Noun (2)

ash (countable and uncountable, plural ashes)

  1. A shade tree of the genus Fraxinus.
    • The ash trees are dying off due to emerald ash borer.
    • The woods planted in ash will see a different mix of species.
    Synonyms:
    ash tree
  2. Any tree of certain species of other genera.
  3. (uncountable) The wood of this tree.
    • English soldiers handled sturdy bows of yew, ash, or elm, which could propel an iron-tipped arrow as far as a hundred yards.1999, Robert Lacey, Danny Danziger, The Year 1000: What life was like at the turn of The First Millennium, London: Abacus, published 2000, page 155
  4. The traditional name for the ae ligature (æ), as used in Old English.

Proper noun capitalized: Ash

Ash (countable and uncountable, plural Ashes)

  1. (Egyptian) The Egyptian god of oases.
  2. Oisc, also spelled Æsc or Ash, an Anglo-Saxon king of Kent
  3. A topographic surname from Middle English for someone who lived near ash trees.
  4. A unisex given name transferred from the surname.
  5. A diminutive of the unisex given names Ashley and Ashleigh.
  6. A diminutive of the female given names Ashlie, Ashlee, Ashly, and Ashanti.
  7. A civil parish in South Derbyshire district, Derbyshire.
  8. A hamlet in Stoke Fleming parish, South Hams district, Devon (OS grid ref SX8349).
  9. A hamlet in Stourpaine parish, Dorset (OS grid ref ST8610).
  10. A village and civil parish in Dover district, Kent (OS grid ref TR2858).
  11. A small village in Ash-cum-Ridley parish, Sevenoaks district, Kent (OS grid ref TQ6064).
  12. A village and civil parish in Somerset, previously in South Somerset district (OS grid ref ST4720).
Show 9 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. A hamlet in Thornfalcon parish, Somerset, previously in Somerset West and Taunton district (OS grid ref ST2822).
  2. A town and civil parish in Guildford borough, Surrey, near Aldershot (OS grid ref SU8950).
  3. A township in Monroe County, Michigan.
  4. A township in Barry County, Missouri.
  5. An unincorporated community in Monroe County, Missouri.
  6. An unincorporated community in Brunswick County, North Carolina.
  7. An unincorporated community in Douglas County, Oregon.
  8. An unincorporated community in Houston County, Texas.
  9. An unincorporated community in Mason County, West Virginia.

Also used as

ash is also the alternative form of aush.

ash is also the abbreviation of as hell or as heck.

ash meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

ash in Hindi

solid remains of a fire
राख rākh

ash in Tamil

solid remains of a fire
சாம்பல் cāmpal

ash in Marathi

solid remains of a fire
राख rākh

ash in Urdu

solid remains of a fire
راکھ rākh
More languagesFewer languages
ash in Bengali
ছাই chai
ash in Telugu
బూడిద būḍida
ash in Malayalam
ചാരം cāraṁ, ചാരമാവുക cāramāvuka
ash in Kannada
ಬೂದಿ būdi
ash in Punjabi
ਸੁਆਹ suāha
ash in Gujarati
રાખ rākh
ash in Odia
ପାଉଁଶ pāũśa
ash in Sanskrit
भस्म bhasma, आस āsa
ash in Sinhala
අළු aḷu, නවදැලි හේන nawadæli hēna
ash in Assamese
ছাই sai
ash in Nepali
खरानी kharānī
ash in Tagalog
abo
ash in Arabic
رَمَاد ramād, سَكَن sakan, رماد ramād, رَماد ramād
ash in Indonesian
abu
ash in Persian
خاکِسْتَر xâkestar
ash in Thai
เถ้า tâo
ash in Vietnamese
tro
ash in Myanmar
ပြာ pra
Kashmiri
سوٗر sūr

Examples of ash in a sentence

  • Ashes from the fire floated over the street.
  • Ash from the fire floated over the street.
  • The family collected the ashes after burning the body.
  • Ash and silica contents of the plant material were determined by classical gravimetric techniques.1989?, Annals of Botany, volume 64, issues 4-6, page 397
  • A 10-g food sample was dried, then ashed, and analyzed for salt (NaCl) content by the Mohr titration method (AgNO₃ + Cl → AgCl).2010, S. Suzanne Nielsen, ed, Food Analysis, fourth edition, Chapter 12, "Traditional Methods for Mineral Analysis", page 213
  • Hamilton ashed his cigar, and studied the end of it for some moments without speaking.1978, C.J. Koch, The Year of Living Dangerously, published 1986, page 35:

All 40 example sentences with ash

Synonyms of ash

Forms of ash

Noun
pluralashes
Verb
third-person singular presentashes
present participleashing
past participleashed
pastashed
Proper noun
pluralAshes

Plural of ash: ashes

Origin of ash

From Middle English aisshe, asche, ash, asshe, axe, eshe, esk, from Old English acse, asċe, axe, axse, æsċe, from Proto-West Germanic *askā, from Proto-Germanic *askǭ (“ash”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eHs- (“to be dry; to burn; hearth; ashes”). Cognates Cognate with Yola ashen, oaskean (“ashes”), Saterland Frisian Ääske (“ash”), West Frisian jiske (“ash”), Alemannic German Äsche (“ash”), Cimbrian èssa (“ash”), Dutch as, asch (“ash”), German Asche (“ash”), Limburgish Aïsch, Aïsche, Äsch (“ash; grayling”), Luxembourgish Äsch (“ash”), Vilamovian oś, oš (“ash”), Yiddish אַש (ash, “ash”), Danish aske (“ash”), Faroese øska (“ash, ashes”), Icelandic and Swedish aska (“ash”), Norwegian Bokmål aske (“ash”), Norwegian Nynorsk oske (“ash”), Gothic 𐌰𐌶𐌲𐍉 (azgō, “ash; cinder”); Breton and Cornish ster (“stars”), Welsh sêr (“stars”), Latin āreō (“to be dry or parched; to be dried up or withered”), Greek αστέρας (astéras), αστέρι (astéri), άστρο (ástro, “star”), Armenian աստուճ (astuč), աշտուճ (aštuč, “dry (of bread)”), Avestan 𐬯𐬙𐬀𐬭 (star, “star”), Baluchi استار (astár / istár), استال (istál, “star”), Central Kurdish ئەستێرە (estêre, “star”), Northern Kurdish stêr (“star”), Ossetian стъалы...

From Middle English aissh, asch, asche, ashe, assche, assh, asshe, esch, haish, from Old English æsċ, from Proto-West Germanic *ask, from Proto-Germanic *askaz (“ash”), from Proto-Indo-European *Heh₃s- (“ash”). Cognates Cognate with Scots aish (“ash”), North Frisian eskebuum (“ash”), West Frisian esk (“ash”), Cimbrian ess (“ash”), Dutch es (“ash”), German Esche (“ash”), Limburgish èsj (“ash”), Luxembourgish Esch (“ash”), Yiddish אַשבוים (ashboym, “ash”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish ask (“ash”), Faroese ask, askur (“ash”), Icelandic askur (“ash”); also Welsh onn, ynn (“ash”), Latin ornus (“rowan”), Greek οξιά (oxiá, “beech; wood”), Albanian ah (“beech”), Latgalian ūss (“ash”), Latvian osis (“ash”), Lithuanian uosis (“ash”), Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian я́сень (jásenʹ, “ash”), Bulgarian я́сен (jásen, “ash”), Czech jasan (“ash”), Macedonian јасен (jasen, “ash”), Polish jasion, jesion (“ash”), Serbo-Croatian ја̏се̄н, jȁsēn (“ash”), Slovak jaseň (“ash”), Slovene jésen (“ash”), Armenian հացի (hacʻi, “ash”).

Transliteration of Persian آش.

Words formed from ash

Phrases with ash

66 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with ash

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about ash

What does ash mean?
Ash means the solid remains of a fire.
What is ash in Hindi?
Ash in Hindi is राख (rākh). See Ash meaning in Hindi.
How do you use ash in a sentence?
Ashes from the fire floated over the street.
What part of speech is ash?
Ash can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce ash?
Ash is pronounced /ˈæʃ/.
What is the plural of ash?
The plural of ash is ashes.

Words near ash in the dictionary

  1. Asghar
  2. Asghars
  3. asgmt
  4. asgmts
  5. ASGs
  6. ash
  7. ash blond
  8. ash blonde
  9. ash blondes
  10. ash blonds
  11. ash borer

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ash (page history and authors); Ash (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-ash.ogg.

Cite this entry: “ash.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ash. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.