Meaning & use
scorched
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Meanings
adjectivenot comparable
Burned on the surface, often turned brown or black by strong heat.
Grammar: Comes before a noun or after be: scorched grass, the toast is scorched.
Patterns
- scorched by something
The scorched toast filled the kitchen with smoke.
Firefighters walked through the scorched forest.
The tablecloth had a scorched patch where the pan had stood.
adjectivebefore a noun
Dried up and made barren by intense heat or drought.
Grammar: Used for land, earth or desert: scorched earth.
Patterns
- scorched earth
- a scorched landscape
The drought left the fields scorched and bare.
Travelers crossed a scorched plain with no shade.
The scorched hillsides turned green again after the rains.
adjectivebefore a nounmilitaryfigurative
Describing a policy of destroying everything useful in an area so an enemy cannot use it.
Grammar: Almost always in the set phrase scorched earth, also used figuratively.
Patterns
- scorched-earth policy
The retreating army adopted a scorched-earth policy.
The company used scorched-earth tactics to beat its rival.
He fought the lawsuit with a scorched-earth strategy.
Common combinations
- scorched earth
- Soldiers left scorched earth behind them.
- scorched-earth policy
- The general ordered a scorched-earth policy.
- scorched grass
- The scorched grass crunched under our feet.
- scorched with heat
- The land lay scorched with heat.
- scorched toast
- Nobody wanted the scorched toast.
Synonyms and how they differ
- singed
- Singed means burned only at the tips or edges, while scorched covers a bigger area of the surface.
- charred
- Charred means burned black through much of the thing, so it is stronger than scorched.
- burnt
- Burnt is the general word and can mean any degree of burning, whereas scorched suggests surface damage.
- parched
- Parched describes extreme dryness, especially of land or throats, without implying visible burn marks.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: scorched or scotched?
scorched vs scotched
Scotched means stopped or ended, as in 'the rumor was scotched', which is a different word entirely.
Practice
The retreating army followed a ___-earth policy, burning crops and bridges behind them.
Choose one answer.
Scorched earth is the fixed phrase for destroying everything useful to an enemy. Singed, sunny and scattered do not form that phrase.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “scorched”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.