Word.ws English Dictionary

scorch

UK/skɔːtʃ//skɔɹt͡ʃ/

scorch noun: a slight or surface burn.

Noun

scorch (countable and uncountable, plural scorches)

  1. A slight or surface burn.
    Synonyms:
    singe
  2. A discolouration caused by heat.
  3. Brown discoloration on the leaves of plants caused by heat, lack of water or by fungi.

Verb

scorch (third-person singular simple present scorches, present participle scorching, simple past and past participle scorched)

  1. (transitive) To burn the surface of something so as to discolour it
  2. (transitive) To wither, parch or destroy something by heat or fire, especially to make land or buildings unusable to an enemy
    • Lashed by mad rage, and scorched by brutal fires.1709, Matthew Prior, Pleasure
  3. (ergative) (To cause) to become scorched or singed
  4. (intransitive) To move at high speed (so as to leave scorch marks on the ground, physically or figuratively).
    • Men on cycles, lean-faced, unkempt, scorched along every country lane, shouting of unhoped deliverance, shouting to gaunt, staring figures of despair.1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 289
    • England delivered an impressive statement of intent in the Rugby World Cup opener by scorching to a 69-7 victory against the United States in front of a record crowd of 42,723 in Sunderland.2025 August 22, Mike Henson, “England open World Cup with 11-try win over USA”, in BBC Sport
  5. To burn; to destroy by, or as by, fire.
    • Power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Revelation 16:8
    • the fire that scorches me to death1681, John Dryden, The Spanish Fryar: Or, the Double Discovery. […], London: […] Richard Tonson and Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, (please specify the page number)
  6. (transitive) To attack with bitter sarcasm or virulence.
  7. (colloquial, dated, intransitive) To ride a bicycle furiously on a public highway.
    • I may not scorch on thee again—thou'rt pinched, my silent steed!1897, “The scorcher's farewell to his steed”, in Edmond Redmond, editor, Lyra Cyclus […] , Rochester, NY, page 59

scorch meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

scorch in Tamil

தீயிட்டு வெதுப்பு, வாட்டு, சுட்டெரி, சூரியன்

scorch in Bengali

ঝলসানো, দগ্ধ করা

scorch in Malayalam

sear, burn, singe
കരിക്കുക, കത്തിക്കുക, ചുട്ടെരിക്കുക, കത്തിച്ചു കരിയാക്കുക, ദഹിപ്പിക്കുക, അഗ്നിക്കിരയാക്കുക
desiccate, dry up, parch
കരിക്കുക, ഉണക്കുക, വരട്ടുക, വറട്ടുക, ഉറട്ടുക, ഉണക്കിക്കളയുക

scorch in Kannada

ಸುಟ್ಟಕಲೆ, ಸುಟ್ಟಗುರುತು, ಕರಂಚು, ಸುಡು, ಸೀಯಿಸು, ಕರಕು ಮಾಡು
More languagesFewer languages
scorch in Sanskrit
प्लोषति ploṣati
scorch in Persian
پرهودن parhudan, پیهودن peyhudan

Examples of scorch in a sentence

  • It was a scorching summer, and the ice-cream sellers plied a roaring trade.
  • Repeatedly scorching a case-hardened tool will ruin the case by decarbonizing it.
  • Although it was a scorching desert by day, temperatures could drop as low as the teens at night.

All 17 example sentences with scorch

Synonyms of scorch

Forms of scorch

Noun
pluralscorches
Verb
third-person singular presentscorches
present participlescorching
past participlescorched
pastscorched

Past tense of scorch: scorched

Plural of scorch: scorches

Origin of scorch

From Middle English scorchen, scorcnen (“to make dry; parch”), perhaps an alteration of earlier *scorpnen, from Old Norse skorpna (“to shrivel up”).

Words formed from scorch

Words that rhyme with scorch

Questions about scorch

What does scorch mean?
Scorch means a slight or surface burn.
What is scorch in Tamil?
Scorch in Tamil is தீயிட்டு வெதுப்பு, வாட்டு, சுட்டெரி. See Scorch meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is scorch?
Scorch can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce scorch?
Scorch is pronounced /skɔːtʃ/ (UK).
What is the plural of scorch?
The plural of scorch is scorches.

Words near scorch in the dictionary

  1. scorbutical
  2. scorbutically
  3. scorbutogenic
  4. scorbutus
  5. scorce
  6. scorch
  7. scorch up
  8. scorchable
  9. scorched
  10. scorched carpet
  11. scorched carpets

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scorch (page history and authors); scorch (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); scorch (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); scorch (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); scorch (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.

Last updated:

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

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