burn-
The verb or verb-stem in composition forming ns. or adjs.
1. With verb + object, as burn-grain adj.; † burn-cow, transl. Gr. βούπρηστις (an insect, also a herb, injurious to cattle), cf. burst-cow, buprestis; burn-grange (Sc.), one who sets fire to barns; burn-the-wind, burnewin, a Sc. designation for a blacksmith.
| 1658 Rowland Mouffet's Theat. Ins. 1000 The Latines retain the Greek name of Buprestis..But I..do adventure to call it by a new name in English, *Burncow, or Burstcow. 1783 Ainsworth Lat. Dict. (Morell) ii, Also a sort of herb which kills cattle; the burncow. |
| 1598 Sylvester Du Bartas ii. i. Furies 165 (D.) Turning our seed-wheat-kernel To *burn-grain thistle. |
| a 1500 Colkelbie Sow i. v. 92 (Jam.) Ane ypocreit in haly kirk, A *burn-grenge in the dirk. |
| 1785 Burns Scotch Drink x, Then *Burnewin comes on like death. 1828 Scott F.M. Perth I. ii. 57 Thou hast had a quarrel with some Edinburgh Burn-the-wind. |
2. With the verb used
attrib. = burning; as
† burn-coal,
† burn-wood; also
burn-fire (
dial.), perversion of
bonfire;
burn-iron,
Sc. burn-airn, a branding-iron;
burn-stick (see
quot.);
burn-weed = thorn-apple,
Datura stramonium.
| 1597 Sc. Acts, Jas. VI, §253 (title) Great *burne Coale, suld not be transported furth of this realm. 1609 Skene Reg. Maj. 152 Burne coalis. |
| 1708 W. King Cookery 37 Not to make his *burnfire at the upper end of Ludgate street. c 1750 J. Nelson Jrnl. (1836) 96 Monday being a rejoicing day, they had burn-fires in the market place. |
| 1485 Inv. in Ripon Ch. Acts 373 Ij *birne iron et j markyng iron 4d. |
| 1675 Cotton Poet. Wks. (1765) 202 I'll make a *Burn-mark with a T. |
| 1847–78 Halliwell Dict., *Burn-stick, a crooked stick, on which a large piece of coal is daily carried from the pit by each working collier over his shoulder for his own private use. |
| 1756 P. Browne Jamaica, The Thorn-apple or *Burn-weed. All the parts of this plant are remarkably narcotic. |
| 1701 Brand Zetland 92 (Jam.) The inhabitants make use of the wrack [of ships] for *burn-wood. |
3. With the verb +
adv., as
burn-off (
cf. burn v.
1 13 f);
burn-out, (
a) a complete destruction by fire; also
= burn n.3 1 c; (
b)
Electr., the fusing of a wire or other electric conductor by excess of electric current; also
attrib., as
burn-out fuse,
burn-out alloy, one that melts at a comparatively low temperature and serves as a safeguard against damage by excess of current; (
c) (the moment of) final consumption of fuel by a space rocket, etc.; also
attrib.; (
d)
orig. U.S., physical or emotional exhaustion,
esp. caused by stress at work; depression, disillusionment;
cf. to burn oneself out s.v. burn v.
1 2 c;
burn-up, (
a) the consumption of fuel in a nuclear reactor; (
b)
slang, a ride on a motor-cycle, etc., at an extremely high speed (
cf. scorch v.
1 3).
| 1861 W. Morgan Jrnl. 27 Feb. (1963) iii. 28 Not an over excellent *burn off—there having been of late a good deal of wet. 1869 J. May May's Guide to Farming in N.Z. 18 In due time we fired it [the bush], and had the satisfaction of having a clean burn-off. 1933 Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Dec. 28/2 A good burn-off gets rid of a lot of rubbish in the form of insects and other pests, but it also destroys the organic matter (i.e., humus) without which no soil can be cropped successfully. |
| 1903 Daily Chron. 29 June 7/5 It has been a *burn-out of three floors and roof destroyed. 1907 Installation News Mar. 4/1 Incipient fires and burnouts, due to the earthing of high voltage systems on building fronts, etc. 1940 W. Stegner in Atlantic Monthly June 774/1 Even without shoes he would have run across burnouts, over stretches so undermined with gopher holes that sometimes he broke through to the ankle. 1941 ― in Harper's Mag. Jan. 160/1 The topless Ford lurched, one wheel at a time, through the deep burnout. 1952 Jrnl. Brit. Interplan. Soc. XI. 10 Ideal performance of multi-stage vehicles is secured if..the burnout weights of each stage form a geometric progression. 1953 Time 14 Sept. 89/2 The three tons of fuel lasted less than three minutes. At ‘burnout’, Carl was at 75,000 ft. 1957 Spaceflight I. 64/2 Four wings provide the lift necessary for controlled flight and four small fins at the rear are used for steering after burn-out. 1975 H. J. Freudenberger in Psychotherapy XII. 73/1 Some years ago, a few of us who had been working intensively in the free clinic movement began to talk of a concept which we referred to as ‘burn-out’. 1978 Hospital & Community Psychiatry XXIX. 233 (heading) Characteristics of staff burnout in mental health settings. 1986 Sun 3 Nov. 19/4 It has happened so often, it is now known in medical circles as ‘AIDS burnout’. |
| 1954 R. Stephenson Introd. Nucl. Engineering vii. 276 As a reactor continues to operate, the fissionable material is gradually used up and the reactivity may decrease accordingly. This is known as fuel depletion, or *burnup. 1959 New Scientist 29 Jan. 239/1 A major aim is to obtain a large ‘burn up’—in other words to use up as large a proportion of the fuel as possible between refuelling operations. 1961 Guardian 18 Mar. 2/3 If I was going for a real burn-up, you wouldn't have caught me. 1963 A. Prior Z Cars Again iii. 26 Ton-up boys were doing early morning burn-ups at the Turntable Roundabout. |
______________________________
▸
burn rate n. (a) the rate at which a combustible material burns;
(b) Business colloq. the rate at which a company spends capital,
esp. when regarded as out of proportion to its earnings or income (
cf. burn v.
1 8d).
| 1963 Jrnl. Soc. Industr. & Appl. Math. 11 412 Depending on the *burn rate, and when the burning is restarted, this second wave may or may not reach the steady state represented by C in Fig. 1. 1984 Business Week (Nexis) 10 Sept. 78 Rumors began to fly around..about ‘the very high burn rate in cash consumption’. 1998 Wired June 118/2 Your burn rate is running at—what? I would figure near a million a month. |