cinder
Americannoun
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a partially or mostly burned piece of coal, wood, etc.
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cinders,
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any residue of combustion; ashes.
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Geology. coarse scoriae erupted by volcanoes.
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a live, flameless coal; ember.
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Metallurgy.
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slag.
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a mixture of ashes and slag.
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verb (used with object)
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to spread cinders on.
The highway department salted and cindered the icy roads.
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Archaic. to reduce to cinders.
verb (used without object)
noun
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a piece of incombustible material left after the combustion of coal, coke, etc; clinker
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a piece of charred material that burns without flames; ember
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Also called: sinter. any solid waste from smelting or refining
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(plural) fragments of volcanic lava; scoriae
verb
Other Word Forms
- cinderlike adjective
- cinderous adjective
- cindery adjective
Etymology
Origin of cinder
before 900; Middle English synder, Old English sinder slag; cognate with German Sinter, Old Norse sindr; c- (for s- ) < French cendre ashes
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
His throne room is made of cinder blocks and has a dirt floor.
In the parking lot outside Brother’s Keeper, hamburgers and hot dogs sizzled on the grill, and rice and beans cooked in big pots over a fire pit built with cinder blocks.
From Literature
I place it so the line I have to cut is just over the edge of the cinder block I found—these are my sawhorses: cinder blocks.
From Literature
When he was about Theodore’s age, Read lost his grandmother in a fire and has long been haunted by the memory of walking through her house in cinders.
From Los Angeles Times
They listen to playlists while pulling carts loaded with cinder blocks: yacht rock for mornings, Jock Jam in the afternoon.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
