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  • burn-up
    burn-up
    noun
    a period of fast driving
  • burn up
    burn up

    burn someone up . Make angry or very irritated, as in Arthur was really burned up at his son for denting the new car , or Those careless drivers just burn me up . [ Colloquial ; c. 1920]

Synonyms

burn-up

British  

noun

  1. slang a period of fast driving

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

burn up Idioms  
  1. burn someone up . Make angry or very irritated, as in Arthur was really burned up at his son for denting the new car , or Those careless drivers just burn me up . [ Colloquial ; c. 1920]

  2. Travel very fast, as in This car will burn up the road . [1940s]

  3. Easily surpass or outdo, as in They'll burn up the other teams . [ Slang ; late 1970s]


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:

"The process is akin to atmospheric burn-up when a satellite re-enters the Earth's upper atmosphere, but has extended over a period of a billion years," he said.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 19, 2025

The researchers at Kyoto University hope using wood in making spacecraft could also be much less polluting than metal ones when they burn-up on re-entry at the end of their life.

From BBC ● Nov. 5, 2024

The ability to achieve high burn-up rates at atmospheric pressure was desirable. 

From Forbes ● Sep. 22, 2014

Some proposals that have been floated for ADR include targeted laser systems to nudge debris into atmospheric burn-up or spacecraft equipped with tethers or nets to drag pieces of debris out of orbit.

From Scientific American ● Aug. 31, 2011

The initial rate of burn-up was only 50 tons a day.

From Time Magazine Archive

Marine markers can burn up to 3,000 degrees and are extremely toxic, officials added.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 29, 2026

Some pieces stay in orbit, while others reenter Earth’s atmosphere and burn up.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 30, 2026

And when space debris re-enters the atmosphere, scientists are on stand-by to issue alerts for objects which may not burn up before landfall.

From Barron's ● Aug. 7, 2026

Satellites, fall to Earth and burn up on re-entry all the time.

From BBC ● Jul. 3, 2026

Out of nowhere, Styx added, “It’s like building a bonfire to burn up all the things you hate. Except tiny, and all the time.”

From "The Season of Styx Malone" by Kekla Magoon

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