Word.ws English Dictionary

burn one's toast

burn one's toast verb: to cause inconvenience; to spoil someone's fun or enjoyment of something.

Verb

burn one's toast (third-person singular simple present burns one's toast, present participle burning one's toast, simple past and past participle burned one's toast or burnt one's toast)

  1. To cause inconvenience; to spoil someone's fun or enjoyment of something.
    • He talks as if I have no right to be upset, as if all he has done is inconvenience me. "Oops, I didn't mean to burn your toast, sorry." That's his tone. He acts as if it's his right to do whatever he wants to me.2015, Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland

Forms of burn one's toast

third-person singular presentburns one's toast
present participleburning one's toast
past participleburned one's toast
pastburned one's toast
past participleburnt one's toast
pastburnt one's toast

Origin of burn one's toast

From sense 3 of toast (a person or group held in high esteem).

Questions about burn one's toast

What does burn one's toast mean?
Burn one's toast means to cause inconvenience; to spoil someone's fun or enjoyment of something.
What part of speech is burn one's toast?
Burn one's toast is a verb.
What is the past tense of burn one's toast?
The past tense of burn one's toast is burned one's toast.

Words near burn one's toast in the dictionary

  1. burn one down
  2. burn one's boats
  3. burn one's bridges
  4. burn one's candle at both ends
  5. burn one's fingers
  6. burn one's toast
  7. burn out
  8. burn outs
  9. burn pavement
  10. burn phone
  11. burn phones

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: burn one's toast (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.

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Cite this entry: “burn one's toast.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/burn_one%27s_toast. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.