combustible
[kuh m-buhs-tuh-buh l]
- capable of catching fire and burning; inflammable; flammable: Gasoline vapor is highly combustible.
- easily excited: a high-strung, combustible nature.
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- a combustible substance: Trucks carrying combustibles will not be allowed to use this tunnel.
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Origin of combustible
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for combustible
Contemporary Examples
This means not offering provocative remarks on a combustible topic like immigration, which is sure to make them enemies.
Children have fantasy lives so rich and combustible that rigging them with lies is like putting a propeller on a rocket.
This combustible brew of race, class, and economic anxieties bubbles all too closely to the surface.
The mix of al Qaeda in the Maghreb, Ansar al Dine, and the Tuareg rebels is combustible.
It runs on combustible poison—ammonia and pressurized hydrogen.
Historical Examples
In half an hour, the huts were stripped of their most combustible material.
At the Point of the BayonetG. A. Henty
The other gas which issues into this atmosphere is said to be the combustible gas.
An Elementary Study of ChemistryWilliam McPherson
"Well, Tom, we'll try and get some combustible or other," said Paganel.
In Search of the CastawaysJules Verne
Almost every man's and every woman's imagination is combustible on one side or another.
The Faith DoctorEdward Eggleston
I know that there are combustible materials there, and that they wait the torch only.
The Writings of Thomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson
combustible
- capable of igniting and burning
- easily annoyed; excitable
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- a combustible substance
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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 combustible
adj.
1520s, from Middle French combustible, or directly from Late Latin combustibilis, from Latin combustus, past participle of combuere "to burn up, consume" (see combustion). Figurative sense is from 1640s; as a noun, from 1680s. Related: Combustibility (late 15c.).
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
combustible
(kəm-bŭs′tə-bəl)- Capable of igniting and burning.
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- A substance that ignites and burns readily.
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The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.