cinder
[sin-der]
- a partially or mostly burned piece of coal, wood, etc.
- cinders,
- any residue of combustion; ashes.
- Geology.coarse scoriae erupted by volcanoes.
- a live, flameless coal; ember.
- Metallurgy.
- slag1(def 1).
- a mixture of ashes and slag.
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- to spread cinders on: The highway department salted and cindered the icy roads.
- Archaic. to reduce to cinders.
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- to spread cinders on a surface, as a road or sidewalk: My neighbor began cindering as soon as the first snowflake fell.
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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
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for cinders
Contemporary Examples
I was determined for this to happen, but his mother thwarted my efforts and had him burnt to cinders in the US instead.
Historical Examples
At the lower end it was black and hard and broken like cinders.
Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, MycenaeJennie Hall
Been high and low, on the chance of finding some hope of saving any cinders from the fire.
Little DorritCharles Dickens
Before the stove the cinders of the previous winter still lay in a heap.
His MasterpieceEmile Zola
At length the stew began to simmer on a fire covered with cinders.
L'AssommoirEmile Zola
We are like travellers using the cinders of a volcano to roast their eggs.
NatureRalph Waldo Emerson
cinder
- a piece of incombustible material left after the combustion of coal, coke, etc; clinker
- a piece of charred material that burns without flames; ember
- Also called: sinter any solid waste from smelting or refining
- (plural) fragments of volcanic lava; scoriae
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- (tr) rare to burn to cinders
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Word Origin
Old English sinder; related to Old Norse sindr, Old High German sintar, Old Slavonic sedra stalactite
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
Word Origin and History for cinders
cinder
n.
Old English sinder "dross of iron, slag," from Proto-Germanic *sendra- "slag" (cf. Old Saxon sinder "slag, dross," Old Norse sindr, Middle Low German and Middle Dutch sinder, Dutch sintel, Old High German sintar, German Sinter), from PIE root *sendhro- "coagulating fluid" (cf. Old Church Slavonic sedra "cinder").
Initial s- changed to c- under influence of unrelated French cendre "ashes," from Latin cinerem (nominative cinis) "ashes," from or related to Greek konis "dust" (see incinerate). The French word also apparently shifted the sense of the English one to "small piece of burnt coal" (16c.). Volcanic cinder cone is recorded from 1849.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Idioms and Phrases with cinders
cinder
see burned to a cinder.
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The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.