scorched
    adj 1: dried out by heat or excessive exposure to sunlight; "a
           vast desert all adust"; "land lying baked in the heat";
           "parched soil"; "the earth was scorched and bare";
           "sunbaked salt flats" [syn: adust, baked, parched,
           scorched, sunbaked]
    2: having everything destroyed so nothing is left salvageable by
       an enemy; "Sherman's scorched earth policy"

Scorch \Scorch\ (sk[^o]rch), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Scorched; p.
   pr. & vb. n. Scorching.] [OE. scorchen, probably akin to
   scorcnen; cf. Norw. skrokken shrunk up, skrekka, skr["o]kka,
   to shrink, to become wrinkled up, dial. Sw. skr[*a]kkla to
   wrinkle (see Shrug); but perhaps influenced by OF.
   escorchier to strip the bark from, to flay, to skin, F.
   ['e]corcher, LL. excorticare; L. ex from + cortex, -icis,
   bark (cf. Cork); because the skin falls off when scorched.]
   1. To burn superficially; to parch, or shrivel, the surface
      of, by heat; to subject to so much heat as changes color
      and texture without consuming; as, to scorch linen.
      [1913 Webster]

            Summer drouth or sing[`e]d air
            Never scorch thy tresses fair.        --Milton.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. To affect painfully with heat, or as with heat; to dry up
      with heat; to affect as by heat.
      [1913 Webster]

            Lashed by mad rage, and scorched by brutal fires.
                                                  --Prior.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. To burn; to destroy by, or as by, fire.
      [1913 Webster]

            Power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
                                                  --Rev. xvi. 8.
      [1913 Webster]

            The fire that scorches me to death.   --Dryden.
      [1913 Webster]