burning

1. 1.

   the act of burning something

   “the burning of leaves was prohibited by a town ordinance”

   Synonymscombustion

   Broaderchange of integrity

   Narrowerarsonignitionincineration
2. 2.

   pain that feels hot as if it were on fire

   Synonymsburn

   Broaderpain
3. 3.

   a process in which a substance reacts with oxygen to give heat and light

   Synonymscombustion

   Broaderoxidation

   Narrowerdeflagrationfireinternal combustion
4. 4.

   execution by electricity

   Synonymselectrocution

   Broaderexecution
5. 5.

   execution by fire

   Synonymsburning at the stake

   Broaderexecution

   Narrowerauto-da-fe
6. 6.

   a form of torture in which cigarettes or cigars or other hot implements are used to burn the victim's skin

   Broadertorture

1. 1.

   of immediate import

   “burning issues of the day”

   Similarimportant

Other forms of burning

plural

burnings·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about burning

What does burning mean?

burning means "the act of burning something". That is the primary sense; the word has 7 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in burning?

burning has 2 syllables: bur-ning. The stress falls on "bur". In IPA it is /ˈbɝnɪŋ/.

What is another word for burning?

Close synonyms include combustion, burn, combustion, electrocution, burning at the stake. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is burning a common word?

burning is banded "Core" — among the few thousand words that carry most english. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.