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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Combustion \Com*bus"tion\ (?; 106), noun [L. combustio: cf. F. combustion.]
1. The state of burning.
2. (Chem.) The combination of a combustible with a supporter of combustion, producing heat, and sometimes both light and heat.
Combustion results in common cases from the mutual chemical action and reaction of the combustible and the oxygen of the atmosphere, whereby a new compound is formed. --Ure.
{Supporter of combustion} (Chem.), a gas, as oxygen, the combination of which with a combustible, as coal, constitutes combustion.
3. Violent agitation; confusion; tumult. [Obs.]
There [were] great combustions and divisions among the heads of the university. --Mede.
But say from whence this new combustion springs. --Dryden.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
combustion
noun
1: a process in which a substance reacts with oxygen to give heat and light [syn: {burning}]
2: a state of violent disturbance and excitement; "combustion grew until revolt was unavoidable"
3: the act of burning something; "the burning of leaves was prohibited by a town ordinance" [syn: {burning}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
76 Moby Thesaurus words for "combustion": backfire, balefire, beacon, beacon fire, blaze, blazing, blistering, bonfire, branding, burning, burning ghat, calcination, campfire, carbonization, cauterization, cautery, cheerful fire, cineration, concremation, conflagration, corposant, cozy fire, cracking, crackling fire, cremation, crematory, cupellation, death fire, deflagration, destructive distillation, distillation, distilling, fen fire, fire, flame, flaming, flashing point, flicker, flickering flame, forest fire, fox fire, funeral pyre, ignis fatuus, ignition, incineration, ingle, lambent flame, marshfire, open fire, oxidation, oxidization, parching, prairie fire, pyre, pyrolysis, raging fire, refining, scorching, scorification, sea of flames, searing, self-immolation, sheet of fire, signal beacon, singeing, smelting, smudge fire, suttee, the stake, thermogenesis, three-alarm fire, two-alarm fire, vesication, watch fire, wildfire, witch fire
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