burn up
phrasal verb
burned up or burnt up; burning up; burns up
: to be destroyed or cause (something) to be destroyed by fire
Most asteroids burn up upon entering the Earth's atmosphere.
Wildfires have been raging across the region burning up acres of forest.
Do we still need these old receipts? No, burn them up.
Examples of burn up in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Shooting stars appear when shreds of space debris ranging in size from a grain of sand to a small asteroid collide with Earth while travelling at tens of thousands of miles per hour, only to burn up in a fiery naked-eye display as they're overwhelmed by the friction of atmospheric entry.
—
Anthony Wood, Space.com, 4 Dec. 2025
Operators must now reserve enough fuel to fire the thrusters at the end of the mission to lower the satellite’s altitude, until atmospheric drag takes over and the spacecraft burns up in the atmosphere.
—Mojtaba Akhavan-Tafti, The Conversation, 3 Dec. 2025
Others are deorbited and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.
—Chris Young, Interesting Engineering, 1 Dec. 2025
To avoid burning up too much of its cash on hand, big Silicon Valley companies, like Meta and Oracle, are tapping private equity and debt to finance the industry's data center building spree.
—Bobby Allyn, NPR, 23 Nov. 2025
See All Example Sentences for burn up
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Anthony Wood, Space.com, 4 Dec. 2025
Operators must now reserve enough fuel to fire the thrusters at the end of the mission to lower the satellite’s altitude, until atmospheric drag takes over and the spacecraft burns up in the atmosphere.
—Mojtaba Akhavan-Tafti, The Conversation, 3 Dec. 2025
Others are deorbited and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.
—Chris Young, Interesting Engineering, 1 Dec. 2025
To avoid burning up too much of its cash on hand, big Silicon Valley companies, like Meta and Oracle, are tapping private equity and debt to finance the industry's data center building spree.
—Bobby Allyn, NPR, 23 Nov. 2025
See All Example Sentences for burn up
Cite this Entry
“Burn up.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/burn%20up. Accessed 9 Dec. 2025.
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