SCORCHED

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does scorched mean? 

• SCORCHED (adjective)
  The adjective SCORCHED has 2 senses:

1. dried out by heat or excessive exposure to sunlight

2. having everything destroyed so nothing is left salvageable by an enemy

  Familiarity information: SCORCHED used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SCORCHED (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Dried out by heat or excessive exposure to sunlight

Synonyms:

adust; baked; parched; scorched; sunbaked

Context example:

sunbaked salt flats

Similar:

dry (free from liquid or moisture; lacking natural or normal moisture or depleted of water; or no longer wet)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Having everything destroyed so nothing is left salvageable by an enemy

Context example:

Sherman's scorched earth policy

Similar:

destroyed (spoiled or ruined or demolished)

 Context examples 

And when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The soles which you are at this moment presenting to me are slightly scorched.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But of course you have scorched them already.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I passed my finger over his eyebrows, and remarked that they were scorched, and that I would apply something which would make them grow as broad and black as ever.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Both nose and tongue had been scorched by the live thing, sun-coloured, that had grown up under Grey Beaver's hands.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Her banner is planted on ice. Her banner is scorched in the sun.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He was all but naked, a ragged and fire-scorched skin hanging part way down his back, but on his body there was much hair.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

The boiled tea was very bitter, the omelet scorched, and the biscuits speckled with saleratus, but Mrs. March received her repast with thanks and laughed heartily over it after Jo was gone.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

As he sat on my sofa, with his long knees drawn up under his coffee-cup, his hat and gloves upon the ground close to him, his spoon going softly round and round, his shadowless red eyes, which looked as if they had scorched their lashes off, turned towards me without looking at me, the disagreeable dints I have formerly described in his nostrils coming and going with his breath, and a snaky undulation pervading his frame from his chin to his boots, I decided in my own mind that I disliked him intensely.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

MESSENGER’s lonely demise on the small, scorched planet closest to the sun went unobserved because the probe hit the side of the planet facing away from Earth, so ground-based telescopes were not able to capture the moment of impact.

(NASA Completes MESSENGER Mission with Expected Impact on Mercury's Surface, NASA)