- present participle of burn.
burning
Americanadjective
-
aflame; on fire.
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very hot; simmering.
The water was burning.
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very bright; glowing.
She wore a burning red bathing suit.
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caused by or as if by fire, a burn, or heat.
He had a burning sensation in his throat.
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intense; passionate.
a burning desire.
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urgent or crucial.
a burning question.
noun
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burnings
plural
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the state, process, sensation, or effect of being on fire, burned, or subjected to intense heat.
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the baking of ceramic products to develop hardness and other properties.
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the heating or the calcining of certain ores and rocks as a preliminary stage in various industrial processes.
adjective
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intense; passionate
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urgent; crucial
a burning problem
noun
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a form of heat treatment used to harden and finish ceramic materials or to prepare certain ores for further treatment by calcination
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overheating of an alloy during heat treatment in which local fusion or excessive oxide formation and penetration occur, weakening the alloy
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the heat treatment of particular kinds of gemstones to change their colour
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of burning
First recorded before 1000; Middle English brenning, Old English byrnende; see burn 1, -ing 1, -ing 2
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
That lively string of bird feeders beside the nursing home seemed quietly heroic, like a line of lanterns burning brightly against the dusk.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
Changing views: It’s worth noting that a decade ago he called burning fossil fuels “the dumbest experiment in history,” warning they would eventually run out.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
Burnham said 37 fires were currently burning across England and Wales, although not all had been caused by disposable barbecues.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
Last week’s episode of Amicus included a mailbag special in which Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern answered listeners’ burning questions about the law.
From Slate ● Aug. 14, 2026
It meant burning to keep watch, for that which needed to be watched.
From "Impossible Creatures" by Katherine Rundell
In August 2023, Sweden's intelligence service Sapo raised its threat level to four on a scale of one to five, saying the Koran burnings had made the country a "prioritised target".
From Barron's ● Oct. 16, 2025
On Friday, she urged people to get copies of The Handmaid's tale before "they have public book burnings of it".
From BBC ● Sep. 1, 2025
"As natural habitats adapted to these controlled burnings, we see the expansion of fire-adapted species such as Eucalyptus, primarily on the wetter, eastern side of the Bass Strait islands," said Adeleye.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 16, 2024
A side note: Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury’s iconic dystopian novel about book bans and book burnings, which was published 70 years ago, remains on the allowed list.
From Salon ● Dec. 30, 2023
King began his speech, “Beyond Vietnam,” by acknowledging he was moved to “break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart.”
From "Boots on the Ground: America's War in Vietnam" by Elizabeth Partridge
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
