scorched earth

scorched earth noun: land that has been abandoned, in the face of an advancing enemy, after the destruction of all resources on it. Also the alternative spelling of scorched-earth.

Noun

scorched earth (uncountable)

Land that has been abandoned, in the face of an advancing enemy, after the destruction of all resources on it.
The strategy of destroying all resources in an area of land in order to deny their use to an advancing enemy.

Also used as

scorched earth is also the alternative spelling of scorched-earth.

scorched earth meaning in Arabic and Vietnamese

scorched earth in Arabic

Translations: سِيَاسَةُ الأَرْضِ المَحْرُوقَة siyāsatu l-ʔarḍi l-maḥrūqa

Forms of scorched earth

comparative	more scorched earth
superlative	most scorched earth

Origin of scorched earth

Calque from Chinese 焦土 (jiāotǔ, “scorched earth; ravages of war”), originally in reference to the strategy adopted by the Chinese government in the Second Sino-Japanese War. First attested in 1937 as an idiom.

Words formed from scorched earth

scorched-earth policy

Questions about scorched earth

What does scorched earth mean?: Scorched earth means land that has been abandoned, in the face of an advancing enemy, after the destruction of all resources on it.
What is scorched earth in Arabic?: Scorched earth in Arabic is سِيَاسَةُ الأَرْضِ المَحْرُوقَة (siyāsatu l-ʔarḍi l-maḥrūqa). See Scorched earth meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is scorched earth?: Scorched earth is a noun.

Words near scorched earth in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: scorched earth (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-scorched earth.wav.

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