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Burn vs Char - What's the difference?

burn | char |

As nouns the difference between burn and char

is that burn is a physical injury caused by heat or cold or electricity or radiation or caustic chemicals while char is a time; a turn or occasion.

As verbs the difference between burn and char

is that burn is to be consumed by fire, or at least in flames while char is to turn, especially away or aside.

As a proper noun Char is

a nickname for Charlotte.

burn

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) bernen, birnen, from (etyl) byrnan, .

Noun

(en noun)
  • A physical injury caused by heat or cold or electricity or radiation or caustic chemicals.
  • She had second-degree burns from falling in the bonfire.
  • A sensation resembling such an injury.
  • chili burn from eating hot peppers
  • The act of burning something.
  • They're doing a controlled burn of the fields.
  • * {{quote-book, year=2006, author=
  • , title=Internal Combustion , chapter=2 citation , passage=One typical Grecian kiln engorged one thousand muleloads of juniper wood in a single burn .}}
  • Physical sensation in the muscles following strenuous exercise, caused by build-up of lactic acid.
  • One and, two and, keep moving; feel the burn !
  • (slang) An intense non-physical sting, as left by an effective insult.
  • tobacco
  • * {{quote-book, year=2002
  • , year_published= , publisher=Waterside Press , editor=Julian Broadhead, Laura Kerr , author=Tom Wickham , title=Prison Writing , chapter=A Day In The Wrong Life , edition=Sixteenth Edition citation , pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=7IpXLpypY7IC&pg=PA26 , isbn=9781872870403 , page=26 , passage=TOM: I’m serious bruv. Put my burn and lighter and all that in my jeans please and give them here, then press the cell bell.}}
  • * {{quote-book, year=2006
  • , year_published= , publisher=Chipmunkapublishing ltd , author=S. Drake , title=A Cry for Help , section=Chapter 7 citation , pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=LvdPsZHXG3kC&pg=PA94 , isbn=9781847470010 , page=94 , passage=“Any of you want to borrow some burn ,” asked a scarred inmate known as Bull.}}
  • * {{quote-book, year=2006
  • , year_published= , publisher=Policy Press , editor=Peter Squires , author= , title=Community Safety: Critical Perspectives on Policy and Practice , chapter= , volume= , volume_plain= , section= citation , pageurl= , isbn=9781861347305 1861347308 , page=23 , passage=It was like no one was looking out for me, and the older kids used to take the piss ...they were always threatening me and taking my burn [tobacco]
  • * 2010 , Stephen Fry, The Fry Chronicles :
  • As the prison week ended and the less careful inmates began to run out of burn they went through a peculiar begging ritual that I, never one to husband resources either, was quick to learn.
  • The operation or result of burning or baking, as in brickmaking.
  • They have a good burn .
  • A disease in vegetables; brand.
  • An effective insult.
  • Derived terms
    * burn-in * chemical burn * first-degree burn * freezer burn * rugburn * friction burn * carpet burn * outburn * powder burn * second-degree burn * sideburns * slow burn * sunburn * third-degree burn

    Verb

  • (lb) To be consumed by fire, or at least in flames.
  • :
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Welcome to the plastisphere , passage=Plastics are energy-rich substances, which is why many of them burn so readily. Any organism that could unlock and use that energy would do well in the Anthropocene. Terrestrial bacteria and fungi which can manage this trick are already familiar to experts in the field.}}
  • (lb) To become overheated to the point of being unusable.
  • :
  • (lb) To feel hot, e.g. due to embarrassment.
  • :
  • (lb) To sunburn.
  • :
  • To accidentally touch a moving stone.
  • To cause to be consumed by fire.
  • :
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-29, volume=407, issue=8842, page=29, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Unspontaneous combustion , passage=Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia. The cheapest way to clear logged woodland is to burn it, producing an acrid cloud of foul white smoke that, carried by the wind, can cover hundreds, or even thousands, of square miles.}}
  • To overheat so as to make unusable.
  • :
  • *
  • *:They burned the old gun that used to stand in the dark corner up in the garret, close to the stuffed fox that always grinned so fiercely. Perhaps the reason why he seemed in such a ghastly rage was that he did not come by his death fairly. Otherwise his pelt would not have been so perfect.
  • (lb) To injure (a person or animal) with heat or caustic chemicals.
  • :
  • (lb) To make or produce by the application of fire or burning heat.
  • :
  • (lb) To consume, injure, or change the condition of, as if by action of fire or heat; to affect as fire or heat does.
  • :
  • *(William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
  • *:This tyrant fever burns me up.
  • *(John Dryden) (1631-1700)
  • *:This dry sorrow burns up all my tears.
  • To cauterize.
  • To betray.
  • :
  • To write data to a permanent storage medium like a compact disc or a ROM chip.
  • :
  • (lb) To waste (time).
  • :
  • To insult or defeat.
  • :
  • In pontoon, to swap a pair of cards for another pair. Also to deal a dead card.
  • (lb) To increase the exposure for certain areas of a print in order to make them lighter (compare (dodge)).
  • To combine energetically, with evolution of heat.
  • :
  • To cause to combine with oxygen or other active agent, with evolution of heat; to consume; to oxidize.
  • :
  • In certain games, to approach near to a concealed object which is sought.
  • :
  • Derived terms
    * burn a hole in one's pocket * * burn book * burn down * burn in * burn out * burn rubber * burn the roof * burn through * burn up * burner * burnout * ears are burning

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) burn, bourne, from (etyl) burne, .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (Scotland, northern England) A stream.
  • * 1881 , Gerard Manley Hopkins,
  • THIS darksome burn , horseback brown,
    His rollrock highroad roaring down,
    In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
    Flutes and low to the lake falls home.
  • * 1881 , :
  • He may pitch on some tuft of lilacs over a burn , and smoke innumerable pipes to the tune of the water on the stones.
  • * 2008 , (James Kelman), Kieron Smith, Boy , Penguin 2009, page 105:
  • When it was too heavy rain the burn ran very high and wide and ye could never jump it.

    char

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) . More at chore, ajar.

    Alternative forms

    * chare

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) A time; a turn or occasion.
  • (obsolete) A turn of work; a labour or item of business.
  • An odd job, a chore or piece of housework.
  • A charlady, a woman employed to do housework; cleaning lady.
  • I had to scrub the kitchen today, because the char couldn't come.
    Synonyms
    * charlady * charwoman * cleaning lady * cleaning woman

    Verb

  • (obsolete) To turn, especially away or aside.
  • To work, especially to do housework; to work by the day, without being a regularly hired servant.
  • * 1893', She explained that she was the commissionaire's wife, who did the ' charing , and I gave her the order for the coffee. — Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Naval Treaty’ (Norton 2005, p.677)
  • * 1897 , , chapter 2
  • Her husband had been a soldier, and from a grateful country she received a pension large enough to keep her from starvation, and by charring and doing such odd jobs as she could get she earned a little extra to supply herself with liquor.
  • (obsolete) To perform; to do; to finish.
  • * Old proverb
  • That char is chared , as the good wife said when she had hanged her husband.
    (Nares)
  • To work or hew (stone, etc.).
  • Etymology 2

    Origin unknown, perhaps from Celtic.

    Alternative forms

    * charr

    Noun

    (en-noun)
  • One of the several species of fishes of the genus Salvelinus .
  • “Among other native delicacies, they give you fresh char .”

    Etymology 3

    Verb

    (charr)
  • (ergative) To burn something to charcoal.
  • To burn slightly or superficially so as to affect colour.
  • Synonyms
    * coal * blacken, scorch, sear, singe

    Noun

    (en-noun)
  • A charred substance.
  • Synonyms
    * charcoal

    Etymology 4

    Abbreviation of (m).

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (computing, programming) A character (text element such as a letter or symbol), whose data size is commonly one or several bytes.
  • * Java programming language tutorial [http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/i18n/text/terminology.html]
  • * 1975 , Computerworld - 23 avr. 1975 - Page 21
  • The unit is an 80-column, 30 char. /sec dot matrix printer which uses a 5 by 7 font.
    A Unicode code unit is a 16-bit char value. For example, imagine a String that contains the letters "abc" followed by the Deseret LONG I, which is represented with two char values. That string contains four characters, four code points, but five code units.
  • * 1997 , Cay S Horstmann, Gary Cornell, Core Java 1.1: Fundamentals
  • Chars can be considered as integers if need be without an explicit cast.
  • * 1998 , John R Hubbard, Schaum's Outline of Theory and Problems of Fundamentals of Computing with C++
  • Then since each char occupies one byte, these four bytes represent the three letters 'B', 'y', 'e', and the null character NUL.
  • * 2000 , Ken Brownsey, The essence of data structures using C++
  • Thus string variables are pointer variables to chars .
  • * 2002 , Nell B. Dale, Michael McMillan, Visual Basic .NET: a laboratory course - Page 25
  • .NET uses the Unicode character set in which each char constant or variable takes up two bytes (16 bits) of storage.
    Derived terms
    * signed char * unsigned char

    Etymology 5

    From (etyl) , with intrusive r .

    Noun

    (-)
  • (British) tea (drink)