burn

/bɜːn/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Northumbria/bɔːn/

burn noun: a physical injury caused by heat, cold, electricity, radiation or caustic chemicals.

Image: Andy Farrington, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

burn (countable and uncountable, plural burns)

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 with acid.
1. A mark left behind by a burn; a scorch or scar caused by a burn.
  - Cut the cigarette burn out from the fabric.
  - the burn scar on his face
2. An abrasion resembling a burn.
  - carpet burn, rope burn, rug burn, turf burn
3. (uncountable) A disease in vegetables, which causes discoloration that looks like a burn.
A sensation resembling an injury from heat or an analogous force; the quality or nature of a burning sensation caused by capsaicin.
- I dread the burn of the disinfectant where it enters an open wound.
- The burn in my eyes was caused by that bright light.
1. A physical sensation in the muscles following strenuous exercise, caused by a build-up of lactic acid.
  - One and, two and, keep moving; feel the burn in your thighs!
2. (figuratively) Anger, especially slowly mounting in intensity.
  - a slow burn
  - The burn of anger remained in him.
3. (figuratively, slang) An intense non-physical sting, as left by shame or an effective insult.
4. (figuratively, slang) An effective insult, especially a clever or funny one.
  - sick burn
The act or action of burning something with fire, or by analogous means; the quality or nature of an act of burning.
- They’re doing a monitored burn of the fields.
- We went to the burn site to examine the evidence.
1. The act of using a controlled burn to reduce wildfire risk through use of low-intensity fires to eliminate fuel; a prescribed burn.
  - The burn will reduce the risk of a forest fire in the fall.
2. The operation or result of burning or baking, as in brickmaking.
  - They have a good burn.
3. 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
4. (UK, metonymically, slang, uncountable) 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
5. 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

Verb

burn (third-person singular simple present burns, present participle burning, simple past and past participle burned or (chiefly Commonwealth) burnt or (obsolete) brent)

(intransitive) To be consumed by fire or in flames.
- He watched the house burn.
- The wood will not burn well because it is wet.
Synonyms:

burn up, combust, go up
1. (intransitive) To contain a fire or coals.
  - The wood stove was burning, giving off plenty of heat.
  - The campfire died down, but it's still burning enough to feel some warmth through the night.
2. (intransitive) To become overheated to the point of being unusable; to become scorched.
  - The grill was too hot and the steak burned.
3. (intransitive) To be executed by an electric chair.
  - In this state, he could burn for his crimes.
4. (intransitive) 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
5. (figuratively, intransitive) To approach near to a concealed object which is sought, especially in certain games; to be so near as to be figuratively burnt by a hidden target.
  - 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
6. (US, figuratively, intransitive) To desire or ache for (something); to be intense, as a desire.
  - I burn for her touch.
  - He tried to get over it, but he burned for revenge against those who wronged him.
7. (intransitive) To be converted to another element in a nuclear fusion reaction, especially in a star; to undergo nuclear fusion or nuclear fission.
(ambitransitive) To warm (something); to put off intense heat; to be hot.
- The heat from the open oven burned the air around me.
- The sun's rays burned hot today.
1. (ambitransitive, figuratively) To give off light; to be lit up; to shine so bright as to seem to harm (something).
  - That bulb has been burning for years.
  - The spotlight burned my eyes.
2. (ambitransitive) To sunburn.
  - She forgot to put on sunscreen and burned.
  - The harsh summer sun burned his skin.
3. (ambitransitive, figuratively) To irritate; to be or become angry or upset.
  - After you said that, she was burning all afternoon.
  - Your comments got him burning.
(transitive) To cause to be consumed by fire; to destroy or otherwise impact with fire or flames.
- We'll burn all this wood by morning.
- The campfire was ready to go, so she burned it with her lighter.
Synonyms:

cinder, forsweal, incinerate, singe, torch, burn away, burn down, burn up, burn to a crisp, char up
1. (transitive) To ignite (something); to light and smoke (a cigarette, joint, etc.).
  - She burned a cigarette with her lighter.
  - I'm going to burn the stove now so the room will start warming up.
2. (transitive) 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
3. (transitive) To kill by fire.
  - She was burned at the stake.
4. (transitive) To transform using fire.
  - The factory will burn that wood into charcoal.
5. (transitive) To use up; to use by burning; to consume as fuel.
  - I need to burn some calories.
  - We can burn a candle tonight.
6. (transitive) To waste time, money or other resources.
  - We have an hour to burn.
  - The company has burned more than a million dollars a month this year.
7. (transitive) To lose motor oil because it leaks into the combustion chamber and ignites along with the fuel.
  - I think my car is burning oil.
8. (transitive) To cauterize.
  - I had to burn the wound to stop the bleeding.
9. (transitive, pottery) To harden (bricks, pottery, etc.) in a kiln.
10. (transitive) To injure (a person or animal) with heat, flames or scorching.
  - She burned the child with an iron, and was jailed for ten years.
11. (figuratively, slang, transitive) To insult or defeat.
  - I just burned you again.
12. (transitive) To make or produce by the application of real or figurative fire, light or burning heat.
  - to burn a hole; to burn letters into a block
  - The rancher burned his brand into the cow's hide.
13. (transitive) 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
14. (broadly, transitive) 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.
15. (transitive) 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).
(intransitive, transitive) To consume, damage, or change the condition of, as if by action of fire or heat; to affect as fire or heat does; to injure with acid or other chemical reactions; to be painful as if by fire or heat; to be hot.
- Be careful, as that chemical is acidic enough to burn you.
- Habaneros burn more intensely than most peppers. They will burn your mouth.
1. (intransitive, transitive) 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 with each respiration.
2. (dated, intransitive, transitive) To combine energetically, with evolution of heat.
  - Copper burns in chlorine.
To defeat, overcome or score on.
- The Rangers burned the visiting team.
- They burned our defenses.
(transitive, usually passive voice) To subject to misfortune or maltreatment; to swindle or rob.
- I've been burned before by these kinds of promises.
- That's when we burn the mark, and we'll be gone before he knows what happened.
(slang, transitive) To betray; to con or rob.
- The informant burned him.
Synonyms:

knife, sell, stab in the back, assfuck, betray, cop out, cross out, cross up, double-cross, do someone dirty
(slang, transitive) To shoot someone with a firearm.
(transitive) To compromise (a 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
(transitive) 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
(transitive) To swap a pair of cards for another pair, or to deal a dead card.
(intransitive) To accidentally touch a moving stone.
(intransitive, slang) To discard.

Noun (2)

burn (plural burns)

(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

Proper noun capitalized: Burn

Burn (countable and uncountable, plural Burns)

A village and civil parish in Selby district, North Yorkshire, England (OS grid ref SE5928).
A river in Dartmoor, Devon, England, a tributary of the River Tavy.
A short river in Norfolk, England, which flows into the North Sea.
A river in North Yorkshire, England, a tributary of the River Ure.
A surname.

burn meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

burn in Hindi

physical injury: जलना jalnā
act of burning something: जलाना jalānā
to cause to be consumed by fire: जलाना jalānā
to be consumed by fire — see also deflagrate: जलना jalnā

burn in Tamil

to cause to be consumed by fire: எரி eri
to be consumed by fire — see also deflagrate: எரி eri

burn in Marathi

physical injury: जळने jaḷne
act of burning something: जाळने jāḷne
to become overheated: जळने jaḷne

burn in Urdu

to cause to be consumed by fire: جلانا jalānā
to be consumed by fire — see also deflagrate: جلنا jalnā

More languagesFewer languages

burn in Bengali: পোড়া pōṛa, পোড়ানো pōṛanō
burn in Telugu: కాలటము kālaṭamu, తగులబెట్టు tagulabeṭṭu, కాలు kālu, కాల్చు kālcu
burn in Malayalam: കത്തുക kattuka, ജ്വലിക്കുക jvalikkuka
burn in Kannada: ಸುಡು suḍu
burn in Punjabi: ਫੂਕਣਾ phūkṇā, ਸਾੜਨਾ sāṛnā, ਸੜਨਾ saṛnā, سڑنا saṛnā
burn in Gujarati: સળગવું saḷgavũ, બળવું baḷvũ, જળવું jaḷvũ
burn in Odia: ଜଳିବା jaḷibā
burn in Sanskrit: ओषति oṣati, ज्वलति jvalati, दधाति dadhāti, ज्वल् jval
burn in Sinhala: පුච්චනවා puccanawā
burn in Assamese: জলোৱা zolüa, জ্বলোৱা zolüa, পোৰা püra, জলা zola
burn in Nepali: जल्नु jalnu, डढ्नु ḍaḍhnu
burn in Tagalog: paso, sunog, masunog, pagsunog
burn in Arabic: حَرْق ḥarq, سَفْعَة safʕa, حُرق ḥurq, أَحْرَقَ ʔaḥraqa
burn in Malay: pembakaran, bakar, membakar, merakam
burn in Indonesian: luka bakar, membakar, merekam
burn in Persian: سوختن sôxtan, آتشسوزی âtašsôzi, دل سوختن del sôxtan
burn in Thai: เผา pǎo, ไหม้ mâi
burn in Vietnamese: bỏng, phỏng, đốt, cháy
burn in Myanmar: ရှို့ hrui., မီးရှို့ mi:hrui., လောင် laung
Kashmiri: زالُن zālun, دَزُن dazun

Examples of burn in a sentence

The burn of these habanero peppers is exquisite.
You want an even burn on your cigarette.
Her need for a new life burned within her.
The burning sand hurt my feet.
That really burns me up.
He burned his manuscript in the fireplace.

All 40 example sentences with burn

Synonyms of burn

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All synonyms of burn

Forms of burn

Noun
plural	burns
alternative Geordie	born
alternative form (obsolete)	burne
Verb
third-person singular present	burns
present participle	burning
past participle	burned
past	burned
past participle Commonwealth	burnt
past Commonwealth	burnt
first-person singular past	burnt
second-person singular past	burnt
third-person singular past	burnt
plural past	burnt
past subjunctive	burnt
past participle	burnt
past participle (obsolete)	brent

Past tense of burn: burned or burnt

Plural of burn: burns

Origin of burn

From late Middle English burne, birne, metathetic form of brinne, brynne, a variant of brennen, from Old Norse brinna, brenna (“to burn”), from Proto-Germanic *brinnaną (“to burn”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrenw-, present stem from *bʰrewh₁- (“to boil”). 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 metathetic form became the Chancery Standard, it 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”)...

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.

* The surname is of English origin, variant of Bourne. * The placename in Yorkshire is likely related to the suffix -burn, found in placenames such as Woodburn, Glusburn, etc., from burn (“stream”).

Phrases with burn

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Words that rhyme with burn

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Questions about burn

What does burn mean?: Burn means a physical injury caused by heat, cold, electricity, radiation or caustic chemicals.
What is burn in Hindi?: Burn in Hindi is जलना (jalnā), जलाना (jalānā). See Burn meaning in Hindi.
How do you use burn in a sentence?: The burn of these habanero peppers is exquisite.
What part of speech is burn?: Burn can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce burn?: Burn is pronounced /bɜːn/ (UK).
What is the plural of burn?: The plural of burn is burns.

Words near burn in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: burn (page history and authors); Burn (page history and authors); পোড়া (Bengali) (page history and authors); ಸುಡು (Kannada) (page history and authors); سڑنا (Punjabi) (page history and authors); જળવું (Gujarati) (page history and authors); පුච්චනවා (Sinhala) (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-burn.wav, en-us-burn.ogg.

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