burning
Americanadjective
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aflame; on fire.
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very hot; simmering.
The water was burning.
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very bright; glowing.
She wore a burning red bathing suit.
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caused by or as if by fire, a burn, or heat.
He had a burning sensation in his throat.
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intense; passionate.
a burning desire.
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urgent or crucial.
a burning question.
noun
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burnings
plural
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the state, process, sensation, or effect of being on fire, burned, or subjected to intense heat.
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the baking of ceramic products to develop hardness and other properties.
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the heating or the calcining of certain ores and rocks as a preliminary stage in various industrial processes.
adjective
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intense; passionate
-
urgent; crucial
a burning problem
noun
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a form of heat treatment used to harden and finish ceramic materials or to prepare certain ores for further treatment by calcination
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overheating of an alloy during heat treatment in which local fusion or excessive oxide formation and penetration occur, weakening the alloy
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the heat treatment of particular kinds of gemstones to change their colour
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of burning
First recorded before 1000; Middle English brenning, Old English byrnende; see burn 1, -ing 1, -ing 2
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:
Your burning questions, answered: In the special segment Decoder Rings Back, host Willa Paskin answers listeners’ queries about cultural mysteries.
From Slate ● Oct. 27, 2026
A law enforcement vehicle was seen driving through a burning barricade in France's second-largest city.
From BBC ● Oct. 24, 2026
Brown fat is a specialized form of body fat that helps generate heat by burning energy, whereas white fat primarily stores excess energy.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 24, 2026
Its chief tourist attraction is the Darvaza gas crater, in the Karakum desert: a smelly, burning hole in the ground also known as the Gate to Hell.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2026
Karli was crying then, crying for our burning home, and maybe also for the trees we were leaving behind, that could not run away.
From "An Elephant in the Garden" by Michael Morpurgo
Weirich must have known about the book burnings and anti-Jewish laws, but he was at first largely silent about them in his diary.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026
They were also sent into the streets in 2023 after a wave of truck burnings raised fears of wider unrest.
From Barron's ● Sep. 27, 2026
The American Library Association has a Bill of Rights, adopted on June 19, 1939, as a response to book burnings in Nazi Germany.
From Salon ● Mar. 30, 2025
"As natural habitats adapted to these controlled burnings, we see the expansion of fire-adapted species such as Eucalyptus, primarily on the wetter, eastern side of the Bass Strait islands," said Adeleye.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 16, 2024
No burnings today, and none tomorrow... but if the snows continue, how long before the king s resolve begins to weaken?
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
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