Is it getting hot where you live? Maybe so hot you’d call it a scorcher?
At first glance, you might not think that scorcher really needs a closer look. It obviously comes from the word scorch, meaning “to burn.” Which is true. But did you know that it’s been used to describe hot days since 1874? Or that it was used to describe harsh comebacks or rebukes in conversation since 1842? Or pretty girls since 1881? Or a line drive in baseball since 1900?
Even more fascinating is the history of that root word, scorch. Its technical meaning isn’t just “to burn” but “to burn superficially so as to change the color or texture.” Um…that seems pretty specific, am I right?
Turns out, that’s for a good reason. Scorch traces its roots to the Old French escorchier, which means “to strip the skin off; to flay.” So this type of burning is specific to a change in skin or the surface of something.
Suddenly makes sunburns on a scorcher of a day make sense, doesn’t it?
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Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary. 
