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:
Once again, he is both arsonist and fireman.
From Salon ● Oct. 31, 2025
He added: “The arsonist set the first fire, but the Fire Department proactively has a duty to do certain things.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 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
The Line fire in San Bernardino County has burned mostly Forest Service land, but investigators believe an arsonist started it in an adjacent suburb.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 21, 2024
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
Earlier this week, Muir rejected claims of no consequences for those who start rural fires and said arsonists could face prison in some cases.
From BBC ● May 2, 2026
His government banned construction on land affected by the blazes, and pledged harsher penalties for arsonists.
From Barron's ● Oct. 11, 2025
Ramirez said there are no locked facilities that cater to arsonists with mental health issues.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 6, 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 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 Bill Nye
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.
