burnt offering

English
WOTD – 23 June 2023

Etymology
PIE word
*h₁epi
A 1500–1520 painting of a biblical scene of a burnt offering (sense 1), perhaps depicting Samuel (1 Samuel 7:9), David (2 Samuel 24:25), or Solomon (1 Kings 8:64).
A burnt offering (sense 2) of paper money at Wenshu Temple in Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
A burnt slice of pizza. Overcooked food is sometimes humorously referred to as a “burnt offering” (sense 3).

From Middle English brend offring, brend offringe,[1] from brend (past participle of brennen (“to burn”))[2] + offring, offringe (“presentation of something as a religious offering; offering presented to God or another deity”),[3] used in biblical texts to translate Late Latin holocaustum (“burnt offering wholly consumed by fire”) in the Vulgate version of the Bible.[4] The English term is analysable as burnt +‎ offering.

Pronunciation
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /bɜːnt ˈɒfəɹɪŋ/
  • (General American) IPA(key): /bɝnt ˈɔfəɹɪŋ/, /-ˈɑfəɹɪŋ/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Hyphenation: burnt of‧fer‧ing

Noun

burnt offering (plural burnt offerings)

  1. (biblical) A slaughtered animal offered and burnt on an altar as an atonement for sin.
    • 1535 October 14 (Gregorian calendar), Myles Coverdale, transl., Biblia: The Byble, […] (Coverdale Bible), [Cologne or Marburg: Eucharius Cervicornus and J. Soter?], →OCLC, Job j:[5], folio i, recto, column 2:
      […] Job ſent for them, and clenſed them agayne, ſtode vp early, and offred for eueryone a brẽtofferinge [brentofferinge].
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Jeremiah 14:12, column 2:
      When they faſt I will not heare their crie, and when they offer burnt offering and an oblation I wil not accept them: but I will conſume them by the ſword, and by the famine, and by the peſtilence.
  2. (religion, by extension) Any similar sacrifice to a deity or deities, or to a deceased person.
  3. (humorous) Overcooked food.
    • 1991, Sara Minwel Tibbott, Baking in Wales, page 21:
      A cooler oven would give heavy, doughy loaves while a hotter oven would provide the family with the inevitable burnt offerings.

Translations

References
  1. “burnt offering, n.”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present, reproduced from Stuart Berg Flexner, editor in chief, Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.: Random House, 1993, →ISBN.
  2. “brend offering” under “brennen, v.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  3. “offring(e, ger.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  4. “burnt offering, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2022.

Further reading
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