[syn: burning, combustion]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Combustion \Com*bus"tion\ (?; 106), n. [L. combustio: cf. F.
combustion.]
1. The state of burning.
[1913 Webster]
2. (Chem.) The combination of a combustible with a supporter
of combustion, producing heat, and sometimes both light
and heat.
[1913 Webster]
Combustion results in common cases from the mutual
chemical action and reaction of the combustible and
the oxygen of the atmosphere, whereby a new compound
is formed. --Ure.
[1913 Webster]
Supporter of combustion (Chem.), a gas, as oxygen, the
combination of which with a combustible, as coal,
constitutes combustion.
[1913 Webster]
3. Violent agitation; confusion; tumult. [Obs.]
[1913 Webster]
There [were] great combustions and divisions among
the heads of the university. --Mede.
[1913 Webster]
But say from whence this new combustion springs.
--Dryden.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
combustion
n 1: a process in which a substance reacts with oxygen to give
heat and light [syn: combustion, burning]
2: a state of violent disturbance and excitement; "combustion
grew until revolt was unavoidable"
3: the act of burning something; "the burning of leaves was
prohibited by a town ordinance" [syn: burning,
combustion]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
76 Moby Thesaurus words for "combustion":
backfire, balefire, beacon, beacon fire, blaze, blazing,
blistering, bonfire, branding, burning, burning ghat, calcination,
campfire, carbonization, cauterization, cautery, cheerful fire,
cineration, concremation, conflagration, corposant, cozy fire,
cracking, crackling fire, cremation, crematory, cupellation,
death fire, deflagration, destructive distillation, distillation,
distilling, fen fire, fire, flame, flaming, flashing point,
flicker, flickering flame, forest fire, fox fire, funeral pyre,
ignis fatuus, ignition, incineration, ingle, lambent flame,
marshfire, open fire, oxidation, oxidization, parching,
prairie fire, pyre, pyrolysis, raging fire, refining, scorching,
scorification, sea of flames, searing, self-immolation,
sheet of fire, signal beacon, singeing, smelting, smudge fire,
suttee, the stake, thermogenesis, three-alarm fire, two-alarm fire,
vesication, watch fire, wildfire, witch fire