spontaneous human combustion
spontaneous human combustion noun: the supposed spontaneous combustion of a human being without an apparent external source of ignition.
Noun
spontaneous human combustion (uncountable)
- The supposed spontaneous combustion of a human being without an apparent external source of ignition.
- Winter is the season in which spontaneous human combustion most frequently occurs; because cold air, which is a bad conductor of electricity, favors the ideo-electric state of th animal body.1829, A London Encyclopaedia, Or Universal Dictionary of Science, Art, Literature, and Practical Mecahnics, volume VI, London: Thomas Tegg, page 243, column 1
- Remember the strange case of "spontaneous human combustion", in St. Petersburg, Florida in 1951? Mrs. Mary H. Reeser, 67, was discovered in her apartment where she was almost completely destroyed by fire. Yet, the apartment itself wasn’t damaged and newspapers near the chair in which she was...1953, George Hunt Williamson, Other Tongues - Other Flesh, London: Neville Spearman, page 293
- Synonyms:
- SHC
Synonyms of spontaneous human combustion
Questions about spontaneous human combustion
- What does spontaneous human combustion mean?
- Spontaneous human combustion means the supposed spontaneous combustion of a human being without an apparent external source of ignition.
- What part of speech is spontaneous human combustion?
- Spontaneous human combustion is a noun.
Words near spontaneous human combustion in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: spontaneous human combustion (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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