Meaning & use
Bunsen burners
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“Bunsen burners” is a form of “Bunsen burner”. See that entry for the full set of meanings.
Meaning
nounplural
Small laboratory gas heaters that produce a hot, adjustable flame, used to heat substances in science experiments.
Grammar: Plural form: one Bunsen burner, several Bunsen burners.
Patterns
- heat something over a Bunsen burner
- light a Bunsen burner
The students lit the Bunsen burners before starting the experiment.
Turn off all the Bunsen burners when you have finished.
Several Bunsen burners hissed along the laboratory bench.
Common combinations
- light the Bunsen burners
- Please wait for my signal before you light the Bunsen burners.
- turn off the Bunsen burners
- Turn off the Bunsen burners and let them cool.
- heat over Bunsen burners
- We heated the water over Bunsen burners.
- blue flame of the Bunsen burners
- The blue flame of the Bunsen burners showed the gas was burning cleanly.
- set up Bunsen burners
- The technician set up Bunsen burners at every station.
Synonyms and how they differ
- gas burners
- Gas burners is a general term, while Bunsen burners names the laboratory design with an air-hole collar.
- spirit lamps
- Spirit lamps burn alcohol and give a cooler, smaller flame than Bunsen burners.
- hot plates
- Hot plates heat with electricity and have no open flame, unlike Bunsen burners.
Word family
- Bunsen burner noun
- the singular form
- burner noun
- any device that produces a flame
- burn verb
- to produce flames or be on fire
Commonly confused: Bunsen burners or Bunsen?
Bunsen burners vs Bunsen
Bunsen is a name, not a general word for any burner; stoves and candles are not Bunsen burners.
Practice
In a chemistry lesson, students heat a test tube over ____.
Choose one answer.
Bunsen burners produce the flame used for heating. The other options are lab equipment that does not heat anything.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “Bunsen burners”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.