[f. prec., or its Latin source. First and chiefly used in pa. pple. combusted. Pa. t. in Sc. also combust.] trans. To burn up, consume with fire; to calcine. (Now only jocular or affected.)
1483. Caxton, Gold. Leg., 438/2. Fyre descendyd fro heuen upon them and [they] were all combusted and brente. Ibid., G. de la Tour, xxxix. D iv. Ne fyre myght haue combusted or brente her.
a. 1547. in Vicary’s Anat. (1886), App. ix. 224. Putt therto lytherge … and redde corall combusted.
1560. Rolland, Crt. Venus, II. 522. Scho … combust thame in the fyre.
1852. Dickens, Bleak Ho., xxxiii. ‘You don’t suppose that I would go spontaneously combusting any person?’
1882. Sutton, in Society, 7 Oct., 16/1. Wilt thou cook up or combust or incinerate The earth with thy igneous tail?
† b. fig. To consume or waste as fire does. Obs.
1623. Favine, Theat. Hon., VI. viii. 145. Such as had combusted his State.
16[?]. Time’s Storehouse, 251 (L.). All Germany was combusted with great troubles.
