burn down

phrasal verb

burned down or burnt down; burning down; burns down

1

of a building or other structure : to be destroyed by fire

The hotel burned down in 1922.

2

of a fire : to become smaller : to gradually produce less and less flame

We watched the fire as it slowly burned down.

3

: to destroy (something) by fire

Vandals burned down the school.

burned it down

Examples of burn down in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The station closed right around the passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in the early 1970s, and its building burned down. —John Metcalfe, Mercury News, 13 Aug. 2025

The legacy of the Riverside pool Out at the western end of San Francisco, the ruins of Sutro Baths – which burned down in 1966, while the defunct pool was in the process of being demolished – remain an easily-accessible and popular site. —Graham Womack, Sacbee.com, 11 Aug. 2025

Unfortunately, in January 2025, the school, located in the Pacific Palisades, burned down in the Los Angeles wildfires. —Christopher Rudolph, People.com, 9 Aug. 2025

One of those projects is a new school in Stebbins, a Yup'ik village on the coast of the Norton Sound and the Bering Sea where the building burned down last year. —Emily Schwing, NPR, 1 Aug. 2025

Rhymes for burn down

• adown
• blowdown
• breakdown
• countdown
• crackdown
• crosstown
• downtown
• drawdown
• dropdown
• facedown
• godown
• hometown