cinder

American  

[sin-der] / ˈsɪn dər /

noun

cinders plural

1. a partially or mostly burned piece of coal, wood, etc.

2. cinders,

   1. any residue of combustion; ashes.

   2. Geology. coarse scoriae erupted by volcanoes.

3. a live, flameless coal; ember.

4. Metallurgy.

   1. slag.

   2. a mixture of ashes and slag.

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verb (used with object)

1. to spread cinders on.

   The highway department salted and cindered the icy roads.

2. Archaic. to reduce to cinders.

verb (used without object)

1. to spread cinders on a surface, as a road or sidewalk.

   My neighbor began cindering as soon as the first snowflake fell.

cinder British  

/ ˈsɪndə /

noun

1. a piece of incombustible material left after the combustion of coal, coke, etc; clinker

2. a piece of charred material that burns without flames; ember

3. Also called: sinter.  any solid waste from smelting or refining

4. (plural) fragments of volcanic lava; scoriae

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verb

1. rare (tr) to burn to cinders

cinder Idioms  

1. see burned to a cinder.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• cinderlike
  adjective
• cinderous
  adjective
• cindery
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• cinders
  plural

Etymology

Origin of cinder

before 900; Middle English synder, Old English sinder slag; cognate with German Sinter, Old Norse sindr; c- (for s- ) < French cendre ashes

Explanation

A cinder is a small, hot, glowing coal from a fire. When you put out a campfire, it's important to make sure that not one single cinder remains. It's easy to miss the fact that a cinder is still hot, since it remains that way long after every flame has been extinguished. When people clean out their wood stoves, they put the ashes in a metal bucket — rather than a flammable paper bag, for example — in case there are hot cinders hidden inside them. The word cinder comes from the Old English sinder, or "slag." The c comes from the otherwise unrelated French cendre, "ashes."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

cinder cinders

The bear was eventually hit with a dart and fell asleep on top of a cinder block wall dividing two properties, its body straddling either side.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 4, 2026

“The industry was created 60 or 70 years ago with chicken wire and cinder blocks,” he says.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 15, 2026

Beneath moss-covered cinder blocks, dilapidated stone markers, and a handful of headstones, more than 200 children who died in state custody between the 1870s and 1930s are buried.

From Slate ● Mar. 30, 2026

He has stacked some cinder blocks to anchor iron rods for holding up a sheet, which is meant to serve as a roof.

From Barron's ● Oct. 16, 2025

Coach Warner ducked into his office beneath the bleachers and came out with a board and a pair of cinder blocks.

From "Tangerine" by Edward Bloor

When he was about Theodore’s age, Read lost his grandmother in a fire and has long been haunted by the memory of walking through her house in cinders.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 3, 2025

"I've been relieved from the burden of my stuff because it's all in cinders."

From BBC ● Jan. 10, 2025

Burning characters to cinders does little but to flatten colonialism into a fiery spectacle.

From Salon ● Mar. 3, 2024

Leonard tried but couldn’t leave Lahaina in his Jeep, so he scrambled to the ocean and hid behind the seawall for hours, dodging hot ash and cinders blowing everywhere.

From Seattle Times ● Aug. 11, 2023

I told him about the cinders hitting my back, the smell of hot creosote, and the huge roar as the train straddled the rails above me.

From "Cold Sassy Tree" by Olive Ann Burns

Related Words

• ember
• soot