Word.ws English Dictionary

cinder

Syllables: cin·der/ˈsɪndəː/US/ˈsɪndɚ/

cinder noun: partially or mostly burnt material that results from incomplete combustion of coal or wood etc.; it often rides the rising smoke column into the air, and it can pose a fire hazard when it lands, in dry conditions.

Noun

cinder (plural cinders)

  1. Partially or mostly burnt material that results from incomplete combustion of coal or wood etc.; it often rides the rising smoke column into the air, and it can pose a fire hazard when it lands, in dry conditions.
    • Travellers over the London & North Western main line in bygone days will need no reminder of the pattering of cinders on the carriage roofs, the fountains of sparks from the chimneys at night and the distance from which the exhaust of approaching locomotives could be heard, due to the fierceness of...1962 June, Cecil J. Allen, “Locomotive Running Past and Present”, in Modern Railways, page 399
  2. An ember.
    • If from adown the hopeful chops
      The fat upon the cinder drops,
      To stinking smoke it turns the flame,
      Poisoning the flesh from whence it came1730, Jonathan Swift, The Lady's Dressing Room
  3. Slag from a metal furnace.
  4. (colloquial, dated) Any strong stimulant added to tea, soda water, etc.
    • Oh, horrid proposition! One would imagine, Tom, that you had been a coal-heaver. Had you said soda and cinder, I would have seconded the motion.1846, Catherine Grace Frances Gore, Selected Works, volume 2, page 9
    • She'd sit by the fire, arms crossed, demanding that Ruby spike her tea with a cinder. But Ruby would never give in to her demands, no matter how much her mam begged. There was no alcohol in the house now; Arthur had made sure of that in an effort to get Mary sober.2021, Glenda Young, The Miner's Lass

Verb

cinder (third-person singular simple present cinders, present participle cindering, simple past and past participle cindered)

  1. (transitive) To reduce to cinders.
  2. (transitive) To cover with cinders.
    • We plan to cinder this path.

Proper noun capitalized: Cinder

Cinder

  1. A river in Alaska.
  2. A female given name.

cinder meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

cinder in Tamil

எரிக்கசடு, சாம்பல், தழல், சீயால் கரியாக்கப்பட்ட பொருள், தணல்

cinder in Urdu

cinder, spark
ٹیمی ṭīmī

cinder in Bengali

অঙ্গার, ছাই

cinder in Malayalam

കരി, കരിക്കട്ട, ചാരം, കരിച്ച വസ്തു
More languagesFewer languages
cinder in Kannada
ಕೆಂಡ
cinder in Arabic
جَمْرُ مُنْطَفِيّ jamru munṭafiyy
cinder in Thai
ถ่าน tàan

Examples of cinder in a sentence

  • She'd sit by the fire, arms crossed, demanding that Ruby spike her tea with a cinder.
  • No, sir; do what we might it had us beaten to cold cinders.
  • Of the ships and the stockade nothing remained but hot cinders.

All 10 example sentences with cinder

Synonyms of cinder

4 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of cinder

Forms of cinder

Noun
pluralcinders
alternative form (obsolete)sinder
Verb
third-person singular presentcinders
present participlecindering
past participlecindered
pastcindered

Plural of cinder: cinders

Origin of cinder

From Middle English cyndyr, syndir, synder, sinder, from Old English sinder (“cinder, dross, slag, scoria, dross of iron, impurity of metal”), from Proto-West Germanic *sindr, from Proto-Germanic *sindrą, *sindraz (“dross, cinder, slag”), from Proto-Indo-European *sendʰro- (“coagulating fluid, liquid slag, scale, cinder”). Cognate with Scots sinder (“ember, cinder”), West Frisian sindel, sintel (“cinder, slag”), Dutch sintel (“cinder, ember, slag”), Middle Low German sinder, sinter (“cinder, slag”), German Sinter (“dross of iron, scale”), Danish sinder (“spark of ignited iron, cinder”), Swedish sinder (“slag or dross from a forge”), Icelandic sindur (“scoring”), Old Church Slavonic сѧдра (sędra, “lime cinder, gypsum”). Spelling (c- for s-) influenced by unrelated French cendre (“ashes”). Doublet of sinter.

Words formed from cinder

Phrases with cinder

Words that rhyme with cinder

Questions about cinder

What does cinder mean?
Cinder means partially or mostly burnt material that results from incomplete combustion of coal or wood etc.; it often rides the rising smoke column into the air, and it can pose a fire hazard when it lands, in dry conditions.
What is cinder in Tamil?
Cinder in Tamil is எரிக்கசடு, சாம்பல், தழல். See Cinder meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is cinder?
Cinder can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce cinder?
Cinder is pronounced /ˈsɪndəː/ (UK).
What is the plural of cinder?
The plural of cinder is cinders.

Words near cinder in the dictionary

  1. cincture
  2. cinctured
  3. cinctures
  4. cincturing
  5. Cincy
  6. cinder
  7. cinder block
  8. cinder blocks
  9. cinder cone
  10. cinder cones
  11. cinder dick

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cinder (page history and authors); Cinder (page history and authors); cinder (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ٹیمی (Urdu) (page history and authors); cinder (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); cinder (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); cinder (Kannada Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-cinder.wav.

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