barn burner

noun

Updated on: 13 Apr 2018

Definition of barn burner

: one that arouses much interest or excitement

the game should be a real barn burner

See barn burner defined for English-language learners

Examples of barn burner in a Sentence

The game should be a real barn burner.

Recent Examples of barn burner from the Web

Last month’s jobs report was a barn burner: Employers added 313,000 jobs in February, the most in one month since 2016, and the strong labor market drew hundreds of thousands of Americans into the work force.

— the new york times, New York Times, "White House to List Chinese Products Facing Tariffs and the March Jobs Report," 1 Apr. 2018
Onetime Weinstein assistant Zelda Perkins has become the first of the producer’s former staffers to break her non-disclosure agreement in a barn burner of an interview with the Financial Times’s Matthew Garrahan.

— rebecca keegan, HWD, "The Weinstein Company’s N.D.A. Wall Has Been Breached," 24 Oct. 2017
Three weeks in and there have been upsets, barn burners decided in the final seconds, and marquee wins that will pay dividends in late October.

— adam baum, Cincinnati.com, "5 takeaways from Week 3 high school football in Ohio," 9 Sep. 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'barn burner.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.