Word.ws English Dictionary

scorched earth policy

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

Meaning of scorched-earth policy

Noun

scorched-earth policy (plural scorched-earth policies)

  1. A strategy that involves destroying buildings, crops, and other resources that could be useful to opponents.
    • The Ethiopian Army waged a scorched-earth policy with saturation bombings and destruction of Eritrea's infrastructure.1993 April 24, Donatella Lorch, “Eritreans Voting on Independence From Ethiopia”, in New York Times, retrieved 02 Nov 2013
  2. (figuratively) An intentional course of action that is drastic or ruinous.
    • The scorched-earth policy that voters adopted toward the Tories left them with no seats in Scotland and Wales and greatly reduced numbers through the prosperous swath called Middle England.1997 May 3, Warren Hoge, “Blair Takes Charge, Vowing 'Practicable' Policies”, in New York Times, retrieved 02 Nov 2013

Forms of scorched earth policy

pluralscorched earth policies

Questions about scorched earth policy

What is scorched earth policy the alternative spelling of?
Scorched earth policy is the alternative spelling of scorched-earth policy.

Words near scorched earth policy in the dictionary

  1. scorched
  2. scorched carpet
  3. scorched carpets
  4. scorched earth
  5. scorched earth policies
  6. scorched earth policy
  7. scorched rice
  8. scorched up
  9. scorched wing
  10. scorched wings
  11. scorched-earth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scorched earth policy (page history and authors); scorched-earth policy (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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