Word.ws English Dictionary

sunburn

Syllables: sun·burn/ˈsʌnˌbɜːn/US/ˈsʌnˌbɝn/

sunburn noun: a burn on the skin caused by excess exposure to the sun's rays.

Noun

sunburn (countable and uncountable, plural sunburns)

  1. A burn on the skin caused by excess exposure to the sun's rays.
  2. A burn on the tissue of crop plants or their fruits (especially if they are rich in water like tomatoes, grapes, apples, gooseberries) caused by excess exposure to the sun's rays.
    Synonyms:
    sunscald
  3. (rare) Suntan.
    • The neutral colours showed off her café au lait sunburn.1956, Ian Fleming, chapter 22, in Diamonds Are Forever

Verb

sunburn (third-person singular simple present sunburns, present participle sunburning, simple past and past participle sunburned or (chiefly Commonwealth) sunburnt)

  1. (intransitive) To receive a sunburn.
    • I have brought
      Your grace a Salamanders skin, to keep you
      From sun-burning.c. 1613, John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi, London: D.N. and T.C., 1678, Act V, Scene 2, p. 64
    • […] there is a Country, in the World, call’d Turkey; where Women are secur’d against the Danger of Sun-burning, by being kept out of the open Air, and lock’d up, like other Jewels, in Places where no Mischief can reach ’em.1724, Aaron Hill, The Plain Dealer, No. 81, 28 December, 1724, London: S. Richardson and A. Wilde, Volume 2, p. 199
  2. (transitive) To burn or tan (someone's skin) by the sun; to allow (a part of one's body) to become sunburnt.
    • My Aunt charg’d me not to pull off my Glove for fear of Sun-burning my hand.1668, John Dryden, Sir Martin Mar-all, London: H. Herringman, act II, page 11
    • As we crossed the Colorado-Utah border I saw God in the sky in the form of huge gold sunburning clouds above the desert […]1957 September 5, Jack Kerouac, chapter 1, in On the Road, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, →OCLC, part 3

Proper noun capitalized: Sunburn

Sunburn

  1. (slang) The ship of characters Sunny (or Omori) and Aubrey from the videogame Omori.

sunburn meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam and Tagalog

sunburn in Tamil

சதிர்க்குரு, வேனிற் கட்டி

sunburn in Bengali

সূর্যদাহ, রোদে পোড়া

sunburn in Malayalam

വെയിൽ കൊളളിച്ച് നിറം മങ്ങിക്കുക

sunburn in Tagalog

burn on skin
katim, paso ng araw
More languagesFewer languages
sunburn in Arabic
حَرْق شَمْسِيّ ḥarq šamsiyy, لَفْح الشَّمْس lafḥ aš-šams
sunburn in Malay
selaran matahari
sunburn in Thai
การถูกแดดเผา Kār t̄hūk dæd p̄heā, ถูกแดดเผา T̄hūk dæd p̄heā, ผิวไหม้ P̄hiw h̄ịm̂, แดดเผา Dæd p̄heā
sunburn in Vietnamese
cháy nắng

Examples of sunburn in a sentence

  • All foliage is necessary in Texas to keep the tomato fruit from sunburning.2012, Greg Grant, Texas Fruit & Vegetable Gardening, Minneapolis: Cool Springs Press, →ISBN, pages 148–149:
  • “Oh shoot, I’ve sunburned the top half of my boobs,” she said, frowning down her chest.1989, Barbara Kingsolver, chapter 7, in The Bean Trees, New York: Harper and Row, page 95:

All 27 example sentences with sunburn

Synonyms of sunburn

Forms of sunburn

Noun
pluralsunburns
Verb
third-person singular presentsunburns
present participlesunburning
past participlesunburned
pastsunburned
past participle Commonwealthsunburnt
past Commonwealthsunburnt

Plural of sunburn: sunburns

Origin of sunburn

From Middle English *sunne burnen, *sonne brennen, *sunne brennen (suggested by derivatives sonne brennynge, sunne brennynge (“sunburn”, literally “sun-burning”) and sunne brente (“sunburnt”), equivalent to sun + burn. Compare West Frisian sinnebrân (“sunburn”), Dutch zonnebrand (“sunburn”), German Sonnenbrand (“sunburn”), Swedish solbränna (“sunburn”), and Icelandic sólbruni (“sunburn”), as well as Old English sunbryne (“sunburn”).

From sunburn, in reference to Sunny's name and Aubrey's hot-headed, "fiery" personality.

Words formed from sunburn

Questions about sunburn

What does sunburn mean?
Sunburn means a burn on the skin caused by excess exposure to the sun's rays.
What is sunburn in Tamil?
Sunburn in Tamil is சதிர்க்குரு, வேனிற் கட்டி. See Sunburn meaning in Tamil.
How do you use sunburn in a sentence?
All foliage is necessary in Texas to keep the tomato fruit from sunburning.
What part of speech is sunburn?
Sunburn can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce sunburn?
Sunburn is pronounced /ˈsʌnˌbɜːn/ (UK).
What is the plural of sunburn?
The plural of sunburn is sunburns.

Words near sunburn in the dictionary

  1. sunbrellas
  2. sunbright
  3. sunbrowned
  4. sunbunnies
  5. sunbunny
  6. sunburn
  7. sunburned
  8. sunburning
  9. sunburnlike
  10. sunburns
  11. sunburnt

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sunburn (page history and authors); Sunburn (page history and authors); sunburn (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sunburn (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sunburn (Malayalam 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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-sunburn.wav.

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