- present participle of scorch.
scorching
Americanadjective
-
burning; very hot.
-
caustic or scathing.
a scorching denunciation.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of scorching
Explanation
Use the adjective scorching to mean extremely hot. The scorching heat from a wildfire tar on roads and char nearby houses and trees. There's a huge difference between a warm day and a scorching one; the word implies a brutal heat. If the weather is scorching, you'll be desperate for air conditioning, iced drinks, or the relief of a cold shower. You can also use it to mean "harsh," like a critic's scorching review of a really terrible movie. Etymologists suspect that scorching is derived from the Old Norse skorpna, "to be shriveled."
Vocabulary lists containing scorching
A Rover's Story
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I Survived the San Francisco Earthquake, 1906
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The School for Invisible Boys
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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.
“Wicker” is empathetic to their insecurities, yet it has no tolerance for how moral hypocrites ignore the opportunity for self-improvement in favor of scorching everything to the ground.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2026
A scorching hot planet nearly 320 light-years from Earth has provided the first direct evidence for a fundamental assumption about how planets form.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 14, 2026
It’s not necessarily a perspective one expects to be accompanied by the kind of scorching guitar riffs adorning “Date Night.”
From Salon ● Sep. 22, 2026
“A scorching mid-September may enhance the seasonal cliff in power sector gas burns ahead.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 16, 2026
I’ll sleep here if I have to and wait in the scorching heat all day tomorrow.
From "I Am the Messenger" by Markus Zusak
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
