Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Causing or designed to cause fires.
  • adjective Of or containing chemicals that produce intensely hot fire when exploded.
  • adjective Intentionally started or set.
  • adjective Tending to arouse strong emotion or conflict; inflammatory.
  • adjective Causing a strong burning sensation in the mouth; very hot.
  • noun An incendiary bomb, bullet, or device.
  • noun A person who intentionally starts a fire with the purpose of causing damage or injury.
  • noun One who creates or stirs up conflict; an agitator.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • 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.
  • noun A person who maliciously sets fire to a house, shop, barn, or other inflammable property; one who is guilty of arson.
  • noun One who or that which excites or inflames; a person who excites antagonism and promotes factious quarrels; a violent agitator.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Any person who maliciously sets fire to a building or other valuable or other valuable property.
  • noun A person who excites or inflames factions, and promotes quarrels or sedition; an agitator; an exciter.
  • adjective Of or pertaining to incendiarism, or the malicious burning of valuable property
  • adjective Tending to excite or inflame factions, sedition, or quarrel; inflammatory; seditious.
  • adjective a device designed to set a structure on fire; a firebomb.
  • adjective a bombshell. See Carcass, 4.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Capable of, or used for, or actually causing fire.
  • adjective Intentionally stirring up strife, riot, rebellion.
  • adjective Inflammatory, emotionally charged.
  • noun Something capable of causing fire, particularly a weapon.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective capable of catching fire spontaneously or causing fires or burning readily
  • adjective arousing to action or rebellion
  • noun a bomb that is designed to start fires; is most effective against flammable targets (such as fuel)
  • adjective involving deliberate burning of property
  • noun a criminal who illegally sets fire to property

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Latin incendiārius, from incendium, fire, from incendere, to set on fire; see incense.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin incendiārius ("setting alight"), from incendium ("destructive fire"), from incendō ("I set on fire, kindle"), from in- ("into, in, on, upon") + candeō ("I am hot").

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Examples

  • 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.

    Jorge A. Rey: Lessons From the Barbecue that Wasn't Jorge A. Rey 2010

  • 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.

    Jorge A. Rey: Lessons From the Barbecue that Wasn't Jorge A. Rey 2010

  • 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.

    DeMint blasts Obama's 'false promises' 2009

  • 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."

    The Ron Paul Vote Daniel Henninger 2011

  • 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.

    Jorge A. Rey: Lessons From the Barbecue that Wasn't Jorge A. Rey 2010

  • 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. 2010

  • 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.

    Miss Ashley and Her Chifferobe...Busted. 2008

  • 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.

    Archive 2008-10-01 2008

  • 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.

    Megite Technology News: What's Happening Right Now Zoe Slocum 2010

  • 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.

    STLtoday.com Top News Headlines 2010

Comments

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  • i thought it could also be INCENDIARY LANGUAGE tambien; as in politics, divisive language to separate the haves and the have-nots

    December 1, 2007