Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Causing or capable of causing fire.
- adj. Of or containing chemicals that produce intensely hot fire when exploded: an incendiary bomb.
- adj. Of or involving arson.
- adj. Tending to inflame; inflammatory: an incendiary speech.
- n. An arsonist.
- n. An incendiary device.
- n. One who creates or stirs up factionalism or sedition; an agitator.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Causing or adapted to cause combustion; used in starting a fire or conflagration; igniting; inflammatory: as, incendiary materials; an incendiary match or bomb. Specifically
- Pertaining or relating to or consisting in malicious or criminal setting on fire or burning: as, an incendiary mania; the incendiary torch; an incendiary fire.
- Tending to excite or inflame passion, sedition, or violence.
- n. A person who maliciously sets fire to a house, shop, barn, or other inflammable property; one who is guilty of arson.
- n. One who or that which excites or inflames; a person who excites antagonism and promotes factious quarrels; a violent agitator.
Wiktionary
- adj. Capable of causing fire.
- adj. Intentionally stirring up strife, riot, rebellion
- adj. Inflammatory, emotionally charged.
- n. Something capable of causing fire, particularly a weapon.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Any person who maliciously sets fire to a building or other valuable or other valuable property.
- n. A person who excites or inflames factions, and promotes quarrels or sedition; an agitator; an exciter.
- adj. Of or pertaining to incendiarism, or the malicious burning of valuable property
- adj. Tending to excite or inflame factions, sedition, or quarrel; inflammatory; seditious.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. capable of catching fire spontaneously or causing fires or burning readily
- adj. arousing to action or rebellion
- n. a bomb that is designed to start fires; is most effective against flammable targets (such as fuel)
- adj. involving deliberate burning of property
- n. a criminal who illegally sets fire to property
Etymologies
- Middle English, from Latin incendiārius, from incendium, fire, from incendere, to set on fire; see incense1.
Examples
“August 19th, 2009 5: 51 pm ET more party of no idiocy. when will they try to work at providing a solution? currently, all they are good at is speaking in incendiary terms and causing problems.”
“Mr. Romney is running a campaign strategy indeed targeted at the broad fiscal conservative coalition that emerged in 2010: Hold the worried independents and centrist Democrats by avoiding what in his Dec. 24 Wall Street Journal Weekend Interview he called "incendiary things.”
“Beck cannot claim that he was the voice of reason for these extremist shitheads, long after he engaged in incendiary rhetoric which incited them in the first place.”
Think Progress » Stupak receives death threats after voting for health reform.
“In Johnson, the Supreme Court invalidated a statute that prohibited flag burning, but it also endowed Americans, like Reverend Jones, with the right to engage in incendiary conduct like burning the Quran.”
The Huffington Post: Jorge A. Rey: Lessons From the Barbecue that Wasn't
“When certain incendiary stories break in the news, I have found that it is almost always better to step back, let a little of the dust settle, and then weigh in.”
“Sources call Apple vs. Google battle "incendiary" - The competition between Apple and Google has reached "incendiary" levels that aren't likely to cool down anytime soon, a detailed story from within the two companies has shown.”
“Since severing his ties with the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago - where the now-retired Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. delivered sermons that, by the president's own admission, were racially "incendiary" - Obama has been in search of a new church.”
“She’d never challenged him face-to-face, yet when Father went “chasing after one of his dragons,” as we called his incendiary campaigns, we instinctively gathered behind her.”
“Romney raised Gingrich's remarks on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, describing as "incendiary" Gingrich's claim that Palestinians were an "invented people".”
The Guardian: Iowa Republican debate: Gingrich banks Romney's '$10,000 bet' gaffe
“Gray calls incendiary package sender "cowardly, dastardly" D.C.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘incendiary’.
-
GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
-
Bad Options
words for those who commit particular crimes: i.e., bank robber, arsonist, etc.
liar, cheat, traitor, arsonist, felon, braggard, thief, profiteer, impostor, phony, fraud, culprit and 194 more...
-
Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 1073 more...
-
vocab 3
predilection, vagrant, stint, insinuate, incendiary, heedless, nonchalant, writhe, queasy, incandescest, hauteur, castigate and 24 more...
-
jennasue's list
it's on the tip of my tongue; confusion; poetry
cindery, symmetry, incendiary, desultory, changeable, entropy, identity, permanence, dust, agape, anima, animus
-
New to Me
anodyne, salient, ecumenical, salubrious, invective, incendiary, colophon, stola, druthers, syllogism
singlepayernow i thought it could also be INCENDIARY LANGUAGE tambien; as in politics, divisive language to separate the haves and the have-nots Nov 30, 2007