Word Direct Answers

What does "scorch" mean?

Scorch: To affect painfully with heat, or as with heat; to dry up with heat; to affect as by heat. Lashed by mad rage, and scorched by brutal fires. Prior.

Additional senses

  1. 2.To burn; to destroy by, or as by, fire. Power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. Rev. xvi.
  2. 3.The fire that scorches me to death. Dryden.
  3. 4.To be burnt on the surface; to be parched; to be dried up. Scatter a little mungy straw or fern amongst your seedlings, to prevent the roots from scorching. Mortimer.
  4. 5.To burn or be burnt. he laid his long forefinger on the scarlet letter, which forthwith seemed to scoch into Hester's breast, as if it had been red hot. Hawthorne.

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