Scorching is heat that hurts. Pavement too hot for bare feet, a car seat that burns the backs of your legs, a scorching afternoon with the blinds down and nobody moving.
It comes from scorch, to burn the surface of something — you scorch a shirt by leaving the iron face down on it, and grass scorches brown in a dry August. Beyond the weather it means fierce: a scorching pace over the first mile, a scorching review that leaves the play in pieces, a scorching shot into the top corner. People say scorching hot even though scorching already carries the hot in it. Keep it for real extremes; a pleasant summer day is warm, not scorching. The noun for such a day is a scorcher: 'Thursday's going to be a scorcher.'
1adjectivescorchingExtremely hot, hot enough to burn.
“They crossed the square at noon in scorching heat.”
synonyms: blazing, boiling, sweltering
2adjectivefastVery fast, fierce or severe.
“The paper ran a scorching editorial about the new road.”
3verbpresentPresent participle of scorch: burning or browning the surface of something.
“The sun was scorching the grass along the edge of the path.”
Also accepted in games: blazing, boiling
Old Norse
skorpna — to shrivel up
Middle English
scorchen
English
scorch
English, today
scorching
Built from
scorch comes from Middle English scorchen, scorcnen (“to make dry; parch”), perhaps an alteration of earlier scorpnen, from Old Norse skorpna (“to shrivel up”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA