arsonist
Americannoun
-
arsonists
plural
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of arsonist
Explanation
An arsonist is someone who deliberately sets houses on fire. Investigators who find empty gas cans near the scene of a blaze tend to suspect an arsonist is responsible. Arsonists destroy property by burning it; that can mean setting fire to buildings, boats, cars, or forested land. An arsonist's motives can include collecting insurance money after burning their own property — or violent revenge, by burning someone else's. The crime they're committing is arson, which is usually a felony because it's so destructive and dangerous. The Latin root of arsonist means "to burn."
Vocabulary lists containing arsonist
The Great Fire
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"We Are Many" by Pablo Neruda
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The Summer of Bitter and Sweet
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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:
Haney repeatedly asked jurors and witnesses why an arsonist would immediately call 911 after setting a fire.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 2026
The revelations — unveiled in a criminal complaint and attached affidavit Wednesday charging the alleged arsonist, Jonathan Rinderknecht — raise questions about what the Los Angeles Fire Department could have done to prevent the conflagration.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 24, 2026
Once again, he is both arsonist and fireman.
From Salon ● Oct. 31, 2025
Indeed, Mark Zuckerberg offering Instagram-specific screen-time reports and time limits has the whiff of an arsonist handing out firefighting tips.
From Slate ● Sep. 5, 2025
He’d grown up being called a freak, an arsonist, because whenever he got angry, things burned.
From "The Mark of Athena" by Rick Riordan
His government banned construction on land affected by the blazes, and pledged harsher penalties for arsonists.
From Barron's ● Oct. 11, 2025
That has not stopped idle speculation that the Palisades had been targeted by arsonists to bring down the area’s richest neighborhoods, or that angry arsonists had started all the fires.
From Salon ● Jan. 13, 2025
“These arsonists are costing us a bloody fortune,” fumed another.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2024
Chubut Governor Ignacio Torres blamed arsonists for the fire, which has burned more than 1,000 hectares.
From BBC ● Jan. 29, 2024
These different features are then arranged so that a great variety of clergymen, murderers, senators, embezzlers, artists, dynamiters, humorists, arsonists, larcenists, poets, statesmen, base ball players, rinkists, pianists, capitalists, bigamists and sluggists are easily represented.
From Remarks by Nye, Bill
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.
