Definition of burn up in English:

burn up

phrasal verb

  • 1(of a fire) produce brighter and stronger flames.

    • ‘He quickly pulled the match head across the strip, a flame quickly burning up on that very tip.’
    • ‘There are three major fires burning up there with smoke going high into the sky, and just beside us here, an oil tanker is well on fire.’
    • ‘‘I think we may get the fire to burn up again,’ he added, throwing some logs upon the embers.’
  • 2(of an object entering the earth's atmosphere) be destroyed by heat.

    • ‘The Foton-M2 service module was hereafter separated from the re-entry module and, as planned, burnt up in Earth's atmosphere.’
    • ‘Most meteorites travelling towards earth burn up in the atmosphere, but it's estimated that on average, one does make it through each week.’
    • ‘The craft drop debris at just the right height to ensure that it will fall back to Earth relatively quickly and burn up in the atmosphere.’
    • ‘The new estimate stems from observations of fireballs from extraterrestrial objects of a certain size that burned up in Earth's atmosphere between February 1994 and September 2002.’
    • ‘When you considering how many meteors burn up on entering our atmosphere it's obvious that if even the tiniest little thing goes wrong with the heat protection then it's curtains.’