incinerate
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
has incineratedperfect 3rd person singular
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have incineratedperfect
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is incineratingprogressive 3rd person singular
-
are incineratingprogressive
-
have been incineratingperfect progressive
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am incineratingprogressive 1st person singular
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has been incineratingperfect progressive 3rd person singular
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incineratessingular 3rd person
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incineratingparticiple
Past
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had incineratedperfect
-
had been incineratingperfect progressive
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were incineratingprogressive plural
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incineratedparticiple
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was incineratingprogressive singular
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incineratedsimple
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.
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
It describes the behavior of some speculators in volatile stocks or cryptocurrencies who incinerate more of their savings after failing to cash in on big paper gains.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 9, 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
If anyone in crypto billed themselves as the kind of actors who wouldn’t incinerate, misallocate, or steal customers’ money, it was Bankman-Fried and FTX.
From Slate • Oct. 3, 2023
Here the prefix in is for emphasis, as in words like incinerate, incoming and intense.
From "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
