burned

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of burn.

   The whole barn burned to the ground overnight.

   The documents were burned before the inspectors arrived.

   Note

   One spelling does two jobs: simple past (the barn burned) and past participle (it has burned, it was burned). Burn works both with and without an object, so the participle follows have in either use. It follows be only when something is burned by an agent: set alight, overheated until unusable, or injured by heat or chemicals. Once very or more can precede it, the word has become the gradable adjective.

2. 2
   adjective

   Showing damage or destruction caused by fire, heat, oxidation, or a similar process.

   Firefighters sifted through the burned remains of the warehouse.

   The hikers found a burned patch of grass where lightning had struck.

   Similarcharred, scorched, blackened

   Note

   Unlike a bare participle, the adjective can be graded. People describe someone as "very burned," and Edward Humes, in Burned (2019), asks which side of a closet door was "more burned." If very or more fits, you are using the adjective. Land managers also speak of "burned range," meaning ground a fire has already passed over, as in Ervin G. Schuster's Below-cost Timber Sales (1985).

Showing meanings only. Show all 2