Also 8 charr. Pples. charred, charring. [A comparatively modern word (or sense), taken app. from the first element of CHARCOAL: perhaps originally a ‘collier’s’ (i.e., charcoal-burner’s) term for the making of charcoal. (Immediate identity with CHAR v.1, is not tenable historically; and Mahn’s suggestion of connection with ‘Celtic caor, gor fire, flame,’ is futile.]
1. trans. To reduce by burning to charcoal or carbon; to burn slightly or partially, scorch.
1679. Plot, Staffordsh. (1686), 128. They have a way of Charring it [coal] (if I may so speak without a solecisme) in all particulars the same as they doe wood…. The coal thus prepared they call Coaks.
1774. T. West, Antiq. Furness, p. xliv. The ore has been carried to where the woods were charred.
1794. G. Adams, Nat. & Exp. Phil., II. xv. 174. You may … char or burn a piece of wood to a coal.
1805. Southey, Madoc in Azt., xi. Round the fire they char The stake-points.
1830. Tennyson, Talking Oak, 271. Nor ever lightning char thy grain.
b. To burn, scorch (liquids).
1713. Lond. & Country Brewer, III. (1743), 184. One [Cooler] heats the other, and often charrs the Wort.
1727. Bradley, Fam. Dict., s.v. Brewing, Will always char and sour their Liquors.
1838. T. Thomson, Chem. Org. Bodies, 614. Concentrated sulphuric acid chars it [spiroil].
c. To mark or delineate by charring. rare.
1871. Tyndall, Fragm. Sc. (ed. 2), I. ii. 48. Falling on white paper, the image chars itself out.
2. intr. To become reduced to charcoal.
1727. Bradley, Fam. Dict., s.v. Charcoal, If it Charrs faster at one part than another.
1855. Browning, Men & Wom., Heretic’s Trag., II. 200. Larch-heart that chars to a chalk-white glow.
