burn

noun

1. 1

   A physical injury caused by heat, cold, electricity, radiation or caustic chemicals.

   She had second-degree burns from falling in the bonfire.

   He burnt his hand in the fire.

2. 2

   A sensation resembling such an injury.

   chili burn from eating hot peppers

3. 3

   The act of burning something with fire.

   They’re doing a controlled burn of the fields.

   One typical Grecian kiln engorged one thousand muleloads of juniper wood in a single burn.

4. 4

   slangAn intense non-physical sting, as left by shame or an effective insult.

5. 5

   slangAn effective insult, often in the expression sick burn (excellent or badass insult).

6. 6

   Physical sensation in the muscles following strenuous exercise, caused by build-up of lactic acid.

   One and, two and, keep moving; feel the burn!

7. 7

   slangTobacco.

   TOM: I’m serious bruv. Put my burn and lighter and all that in my jeans please and give them here, then press the cell bell.

   “Any of you want to borrow some burn,” asked a scarred inmate known as Bull.

   It was like no one was looking out for me, and the older kids used to take the piss ...they were always threatening me and taking my burn [tobacco][…]

   As the prison week ended and the less careful inmates began to run out of burn they went through a peculiar begging ritual that I, never one to husband resources either, was quick to learn.

8. 8

   The writing of data to a permanent storage medium like a compact disc or a ROM chip.

   Allow additional burns enables you to create a multisession CD, which can be used again to write more data.

9. 9

   The operation or result of burning or baking, as in brickmaking.

   They have a good burn.

10. 10

    A disease in vegetables; brand.

11. 11

    The firing of a spacecraft's rockets in order to change its course.

    On 4 March 1999, the MCO performed its second course correction manoeuvre with a burn involving its four thrusters […]

verb

1. 1

   To cause to be consumed by fire.

   He burned his manuscript in the fireplace.

   They haue ſlayne my baylye⸝ and diſtroyed the houſes of my men⸝ banyſſhed and chaſed away myne offycers, and brent yͤ houſe in the worlde that I loued beſt.

   On July 1, 1402, when the Prince of Yen reached P’u-k’ou (in Kiangsu), Sheng Yung and his imperial troops attacked him and attempted to burn his boats.⁹⁶

   Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia. The cheapest way to clear logged woodland is to burn it, producing an acrid cloud of foul white smoke that, carried by the wind, can cover hundreds, or even thousands, of square miles.

2. 2

   To be consumed by fire, or in flames.

   He watched the house burn.

   Plastics are energy-rich substances, which is why many of them burn so readily. Any organism that could unlock and use that energy would do well in the Anthropocene. Terrestrial bacteria and fungi which can manage this trick are already familiar to experts in the field.

3. 3

   To overheat so as to make unusable.

   He burned the toast. The blacksmith burned the steel.

   with a heavy fire in the fire box there would be great danger of overheating, and thus injuring the boiler or of "burning" it, as it is ordinarily termed.

4. 4

   To become overheated to the point of being unusable.

   The grill was too hot and the steak burned.

5. 5

   To make or produce by the application of fire or burning heat.

   to burn a hole; to burn letters into a block

   I posted myself near a place where they had been burning charcoal, and very soon the hare came running past, close to where I was standing.

6. 6

   To give off light; to be lit up.

   I knew that if a light was burning I should be able to see the window lit up from the yard at the back, although the gas itself would be out of sight.

7. 7

   To injure (a person or animal) with heat or chemicals that produce similar damage.

   She burned the child with an iron, and was jailed for ten years.

8. 8

   To cauterize.

9. 9

   To sunburn.

   She forgot to put on sunscreen and burned.

10. 10

    To consume, damage, or change the condition of, as if by action of fire or heat; to affect as fire or heat does.

    to burn the mouth with pepper

    This tyrant fever burns me up.

    This dry sorrow burns up all my tears.

    You are jealous and covet [what others have] and your desires go unfulfilled; [so] you become murderers. [To hate is to murder as far as your hearts are concerned.] You burn with envy and anger and are not able to obtain [the gratification, the contentment, and the happiness that you seek], so you fight and war. You do not have, because you do not ask.

11. 11

    To be hot, e.g. due to embarrassment.

    The child’s forehead was burning with fever. Her cheeks burned with shame.

    In ſlumbers oft for fere I quake / For hete & cold I burne & ſhake / For lake of ſlepe my hede dothe ake / What menys thys

12. 12

    To cause to combine with oxygen or other active agent, with evolution of heat; to consume; to oxidize.

    to burn iron in oxygen

    A human being burns a certain amount of carbon at each respiration.

13. 13

    datedTo combine energetically, with evolution of heat.

    Copper burns in chlorine.

14. 14

    To write data to a permanent storage medium like a compact disc or a ROM chip.

    We’ll burn this program onto an EEPROM one hour before the demo begins.

    At first they didn’t do anything by design, beyond writing songs and gigging around Sheffield, distributing homemade demo CDs at shows. Their canny friends burned copies to leave on buses, but more importantly, uploaded them to filesharing sites and set up a MySpace page.

    I've never been on top of the latest trends. When everyone was burning CDs I was still burning books.

15. 15

    To render subtitles into a video's content while transcoding it, making the subtitles part of the image (hardsubs).

    My old DVD player could play DivX files but didn't recognize the subtitle file, so I had to burn them in.

16. 16

    slangTo betray.

    The informant burned him.

17. 17

    slangTo insult or defeat.

    I just burned you again.

18. 18

    To waste (time); to waste money or other resources.

    We have an hour to burn.

    The company has burned more than a million dollars a month this year.

    Oh, why don’t you save all the money you earn? / If I didn’t eat, I’d have money to burn.

19. 19

    In certain games, to approach near to a concealed object which is sought.

    You’re cold… warm… hot… you’re burning!

    Not being accustomed to make fine distinctions, or to appreciate magnanimity, they read his letters and speeches as if they read them not. They were not aware when they approached a heroic statement,—they did not know when they burned.

20. 20

    To accidentally touch a moving stone.

21. 21

    In pontoon, to swap a pair of cards for another pair, or to deal a dead card.

22. 22

    To make an area of an image darker (when processing photographs in a darkroom, this is accomplished by increasing the exposure of that area to light).

23. 23

    To be converted to another element in a nuclear fusion reaction, especially in a star.

24. 24

    slangTo discard.

25. 25

    slangTo shoot someone with a firearm.

26. 26

    To compromise (an agent's cover story).

    He had already burned his cover with Mrs. Phillips, and it was not a mistake he intended to make again.

    Eventually they'd report back to Ryker, and he still didn't know if Ryker had personally burned his cover and sent assassins after him, or if the SSU had a mole. Until he knew for certain, he had to play this safe.

27. 27

    To blackmail.

    "How does Leipzig burn him precisely?" Enderby insisted. "What's the pressure? Dirty pix—well, okay. Karla's a puritan, so's Kirov. But I mean, Christ, this isn't the fifties, is it? […]

28. 28

    slangTo desire or ache for (something); to focus on attaining (something).

noun

1. 1

   A large stream.

   This darksome burn, horseback brown, / His rollrock highroad roaring down, / In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam / Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

   He may pitch on some tuft of lilacs over a burn, and smoke innumerable pipes to the tune of the water on the stones.

   At this place, the clay in the 52 ft. embankment had been under water pressure for some weeks before the water level could be lowered, and the burn diverted through a temporary culvert.

   When it was too heavy rain the burn ran very high and wide and ye could never jump it.

Forms

plural

burns

past tense

burned, burnt, brent

past participle

burned, burnt, brent

present participle

burning

third person singular

burns