incinerate
Americanverb (used with object)
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incinerates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
incinerated,
past participle, past
-
incinerating
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
incineratesimple
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incineratessimple
-
have incineratedperfect
-
has incineratedperfect
-
am incineratingprogressive
-
are incineratingprogressive
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is incineratingprogressive
-
have been incineratingperfect progressive
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has been incineratingperfect progressive
Past
-
incineratedsimple
-
had incineratedperfect
-
was incineratingprogressive
-
were incineratingprogressive
-
had been incineratingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of incinerate
1545–55; < Medieval Latin incinerātus (past participle of incinerāre ) < Latin in- in- 2 + ciner- (stem of cinis ) ashes + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
See incinerate and think: "burn, baby, burn!" Whether it’s an old love letter that makes you sad or a terrible picture of yourself, it might be better just to incinerate it, meaning, you burn it. When you burn something beyond recognition, you incinerate it, as its Latin origins in incinerare, or "into ashes" shows. Once you incinerate something, that’s pretty much all that’s left: ashes. The word has a formal feel and is often used to refer to the removal of waste material — your city might incinerate garbage, for example — but you can use it any time you need to reduce something to ashes.
Vocabulary lists containing incinerate
The Book Thief
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Slaughterhouse-Five
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The Wednesday Wars
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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:
You probably aren’t rich or well-connected enough to have a 24 year-old incinerate your savings.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 4, 2026
The government will invest $3.5 billion in a project to build 34 waste-to-energy sites within two years that would incinerate garbage to produce electricity, he said.
From Barron's ● Mar. 10, 2026
One man was caught using a blowtorch to incinerate debris in West Hills as the Kenneth fire raged above him, police said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 6, 2025
“Ideally we don’t want to incinerate them because it has to be done very, very slowly. But if have to, we will,” said Bob Cappadona, who leads the company’s environmental services division.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 19, 2023
Would he suck out my soul and incinerate me?
From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline
The machine incinerates the feathers at extremely high temperatures, measuring the emitted mercury.
From Reuters ● Aug. 5, 2023
Then a specialist smelting firm retrieves around 90% of the metals in the phone - a process which incinerates the plastic parts.
From BBC ● Nov. 29, 2021
Even now, he said, he has the sort of high metabolism that incinerates calories.
From New York Times ● Mar. 4, 2021
The earth is currently hurtling through a mass of dust and debris from the 3200 Phaethon asteroid, producing a meteor shower visible to people on both hemispheres as the detritus incinerates in the atmosphere.
From Slate ● Dec. 13, 2018
Springs of ancient wrath spray and fling its repressed fury , heeding not whom or what it incinerates when gravity reclaims lava?s spurts .
From NATURAE by Dom
There’s Spokane, the growing eastern Washington city of 230,000 where fires this summer incinerated more than 800 structures.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2026
Thomas said a large wildfire on Mynydd Llantysilio near Llangollen, Denbighshire, in 2018 incinerated about 10cm of peat in some areas.
From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026
The Earth’s atmosphere has always incinerated bits of incoming debris—we call them shooting stars.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 11, 2026
Globally, it's estimated that 300,000 disposable nappies are sent to landfill or incinerated every minute, leading to environmental issues as many contain plastics and synthetic materials and can take hundreds of years to decompose.
From BBC ● Mar. 12, 2026
Jack immediately grabbed May and dove to the floor, barely dodging a bolt of lightning that incinerated the stones just above the Wolf King.
From "Half Upon a Time" by James Riley
"By reusing plastic waste that is already in Hawaii, we can reduce the environmental and economic impacts of transporting waste plastics from the islands, incinerating it or dumping it in Hawaii's overflowing landfills."
From Science Daily ● Jun. 28, 2026
After all, the “Toy Story” franchise has had pure villains before — one of them almost got away with incinerating the toys for good!
From Salon ● Jun. 21, 2026
Japan does relatively well on generating electricity by incinerating trash, too.
From Barron's ● Mar. 25, 2026
It feels a little bit like Skynet giving us a heads up before incinerating the atmosphere, but I’ll take it.
From Slate ● Feb. 8, 2026
Then, just as in her nightmares, the Mark of Athena burned across the walls, incinerating the spiders until the room was empty except for the smell of sickly sweet ashes.
From "The Mark of Athena" by Rick Riordan
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
