How to Use combust in a Sentence

combust

verb

• That is the sign of a team that is ready to combust, which has fragile confidence.
  — Jay Harris, New York Times, 12 Mar. 2026
• And there’s no way the bear would spontaneously combust all on its own.
  — Erik Kain, Forbes, 3 Jan. 2022
• An active gas leak inside the building was also found but did not combust.
  — Jim Riccioli, Journal Sentinel, 10 Mar. 2023
• As the match went on, there were early hints that Thiem would come alive and Zverev would combust.
  — Ben Rothenberg, New York Times, 12 Aug. 2021
• Also added that, in the meantime, the equipment cannot be used to combust hazardous waste.
  — Sarah Bowman, The Indianapolis Star, 10 Apr. 2020
• These springs keep engine valves closed when the fuel is being combusted.
  — Sean McLain, WSJ, 1 Nov. 2018
• And at many others, things combust in ways even worse than the sternest warning might have suggested.
  — Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 17 Dec. 2024
• The trucks and the food and the medicine just spontaneously combusted.
  — Anne Barnard and Somini Sengupta, New York Times, 24 Sep. 2016
• Fire experts say to avoid plants with gummy sap, and high resin and oil levels that can easily combust.
  — oregonlive, 28 June 2021
• Diesel heaters work by combusting fuel to warm up a heating element.
  — Wes Siler, Outside Online, 23 Dec. 2021
• The plane glides with less friction, saving fuel, while the engines still have enough oxygen to combust the fuel.
  — Ned Rozell, Anchorage Daily News, 3 Sep. 2022
• Babs sees that Vanya is about to combust, but nothing can stop his vengeance except his own ineptitude.
  — Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 24 Oct. 2023
• Trump has kept a low profile as Democrats combust over Biden’s debate performance.
  — Jonathan Easley, The Hill, 9 July 2024
• One day one of the animatronic dolls combusted, and the head started smoking and caught on fire.
  — Kaitlin Reilly, refinery29.com, 24 June 2019
• Put the two together, and, well, the whole great experiment that is the internet might just combust.
  — Sam Reed, Glamour, 12 Jan. 2026
• One advantage is that LEDs are cooler and less likely to combust or burn.
  — Noël Fletcher, Forbes, 28 Dec. 2024
• Since Pylea wasn’t Earth, vampires could stand in sunlight without combusting.
  — Ruth Kinane, EW.com, 20 June 2019
• There is more honor, or necessity, in fights that combust from the heat of the game than from those planned or predicted, the thinking goes.
  — New York Times, 7 May 2021
• Twitter takeover, that site’s users find themselves in a holding pattern, waiting for the platform to combust and release them from its grasp.
  — Carrie Battan, The New Yorker, 20 Dec. 2022
• The heat has also caused methane in landfills to combust and release toxic smoke into the atmosphere.
  — Priya Shukla, Forbes, 30 Apr. 2022
• Lithium batteries in electronics that were stored in a flight cabin's overhead bin have combusted in the past.
  — Kavitha Surana and Jessica Holzer, chicagotribune.com, 16 May 2017
• But the intensity of the Castle fire caused some of the trees’ crowns to combust on a scale researchers had never seen before.
  — Alex Wigglesworth, Los Angeles Times, 5 June 2021
• Gobert, who earlier in the first half was in fact whistled for a technical foul, was asked what happened on the play to cause emotions to combust.
  — Dallas News, 7 Mar. 2022
• Helsley combusted during his time with the Mets this past summer, but a good chunk of that failure could be chalked up to pitch tipping.
  — Zach Pressnell, MSNBC Newsweek, 26 Nov. 2025
• When a mosquito comes and bites him, the bug immediately tastes the spice in his blood and flies away only to combust moments later.
  — Jason Pham, StyleCaster, 8 Feb. 2026
• The removal part is that CO2 absorbed by the trees is never re-emitted at the plant when biomass waste is combusted.
  — Ben Geman, Axios, 11 Apr. 2025
• Combined with carbon and oil sediment the leaks could combust and cause fires when the vehicles were driven at high speeds for long periods of time.
  — Kim Tong-Hyung, The Seattle Times, 14 Aug. 2018
• Comprised of about 40 percent lead, primer combusts completely, coating the shooter in a lead dust cloud from the end of the barrel.
  — Shari Rudavsky, Indianapolis Star, 8 May 2017
• If the air is already tightly compacted and the turbo forces in even more, then the air (once mixed with fuel vapor) can combust unpredictably.
  — Matthew Jancer, Popular Mechanics, 16 July 2018
• Occasionally, a propane or gas tank will slip through the metals screening process causing the tanks to combust when passing through the shredder.
  — The Enquirer, 3 Apr. 2024