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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

arson.

The crime of deliberately starting a fire with intent to cause damage.

5 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈɑɹsən/General-American/ˈɑːsən/Received-Pronunciation
  1. The crime of deliberately starting a fire with intent to cause damage.

    uncountable · usually
    carry out an arson attack
Where this word comes from

From Anglo-Norman and Old French arson, from the verb ardoir, from Latin ardeō (“to burn”). Compare ardent.

verb/ˈɑɹsən/General-American/ˈɑːsən/Received-Pronunciation
  1. To illegally set fire to; to burn down in a criminal manner.

    India · transitive
Where this word comes from

From Anglo-Norman and Old French arson, from the verb ardoir, from Latin ardeō (“to burn”). Compare ardent.

noun/ˈɑɹsən/General-American/ˈɑːsən/Received-Pronunciation
  1. A saddlebow.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Middle English arsoun, from Old French arçon, from Vulgar Latin *arciō (“saddlebow”), from Latin arcus (“bow”); compare Italian arcione, Portuguese arção, and Spanish arzón.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.