ashes

¹ British  

/ ˈæʃɪz /

plural noun

1. ruins or remains, as after destruction or burning

   the city was left in ashes

2. the remains of a human body after cremation

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Ashes ² British  

/ ˈæʃɪz /

plural noun

1. a cremated cricket stump in a pottery urn now preserved at Lord's. Victory or defeat in test matches between England and Australia is referred to as winning, losing, or retaining the Ashes

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Etymology

Origin of Ashes

from the mock obituary of English cricket in The Times in 1882 after a great Australian victory at the Oval, in which it was said that the body would be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia

Example Sentences

We stopped in a small clearing, in front of an old, abandoned outhouse, weathered to the color of ashes and looking like a gust of wind would knock it flat.

From Literature

I chuckled to myself as I prized my new crockery out of the ashes with sticks.

From Literature

To preserve the evidence, officers erected a scene tent and created a grid of 50cm squares, allowing them to collect every piece of bone they could identify in the ashes.

From BBC

After a memorial service in France and a Cuban state funeral, his ashes were interred in Havana.

From The Wall Street Journal

The fire did not burn the wood of the boat, though it smoked—but a rope, Christopher saw, had burned instantly to ashes.

From Literature