slow burn

American  

noun

Informal.

1. a gradual building up of anger, as opposed to an immediate outburst.

   I did a slow burn as the conversation progressed.

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slow burn British  

noun

1. a steadily penetrating show of anger or contempt

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slow burn Idioms  

1. Slowly increasing anger. It is often put as do a slow burn, meaning “gradually grow angrier,” as in I did a slow burn when he kept me waiting for three hours. The burn in this idiom comes from burn up in the sense of “make furious.” The term was first cited in 1938 and was closely associated with comedian Edgar Kennedy.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

slow burn

"Had Claudia Winkleman wanted to carry on with her chat show, it could have been a slow burn," he reflects.

From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026

Their version of Willie Dixon’s “Little Red Rooster” is a slow burn.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2026

“Here was this slow burn that then took the publishing world by storm and I thought, I’d better find out what all the fuss is,” she said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 2026

But for the audience, those sentiments more accurately reflect Ramsay’s film, a slow burn that exhausts its welcome and dies in a blaze after losing its grip on a meandering narrative.

From Salon ● Nov. 7, 2025

They were apparently talking about the Gold Cup, and Lin was sitting there looking at his father and doing a slow burn.

From "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand

Related Words

• acrimony
• animosity
• annoyance
• antagonism
• displeasure
• enmity
• exasperation
• fury
• hatred
• impatience
• indignation
• ire
• irritation
• outrage
• passion
• rage
• resentment
• temper
• violence