burn to a cinder

Idioms  

1. Also, burn to a crisp. Destroy by fire; overcook. For example, If I stay in the sun too long, I'll be burnt to a cinder, or He's an awful cook—dinner was burnt to a crisp. Although both expressions can be used literally, they also function as hyperbole, as in the examples.

---

Example Sentences

When they can no longer hold the spacecraft steady, it will start to tumble, communication will be lost, and the probe will burn to a cinder.

From The Guardian

The world is awash in a fresh wave of tech-centric optimism and the Middle East’s Twitter revolts have yet to burn to a cinder.

From The Guardian

Bevis wanted to see the glade and the rabbit’s burries, but Mark said, if the duck was done, it would burn to a cinder, so they went home to their dinner.

From Project Gutenberg

Control failures could cause the spacecraft to re-enter the earth's atmosphere at too steep an angle and burn to a cinder, or at so flat an angle that it would bounce off the outer fringes of the atmosphere far into space.

From Time Magazine Archive

She could not, of course, say no, and the Widow Perkins, who, besides attending to "Uncle Jim" and "Aunt Dolly," still found time to watch the school-house, came very near letting her buttermilk biscuit burn to a cinder, when she saw the young man walking down the road with Mary.

From Project Gutenberg