Other forms: singing, singed, singes, singeing
To singe is to burn something lightly at the surface. Singe your eyebrows, singed hair, singe the edges.
The damage stays at the surface, which is the whole word — a singed thing is scorched rather than burnt through, and the smell of singed hair is unmistakable. Note the spelling: singe keeps its e before -ing, giving singeing, to keep it apart from singing.
1verbsingeTo burn something lightly at the surface.
“He leaned too close to the candle and singed his eyebrows.”
singe is a light burning.
Old English sengan means to burn slightly. The word is Germanic and old.
Proto-Indo-European
*senk- — to burn
Proto-West Germanic
*sangijan — to burn, torch
Old English
senġan
Middle English
sengen
English, today
singe
Built from
From Middle English sengen, from Old English senġan, sænċġan (“to singe, burn slightly, scorch, afflict”), from Proto-West Germanic sangijan (“to burn, torch”), from Proto-Indo-European senk- (“to burn”). Cognate with West Frisian singe, sinzje (“to singe”), stq soange (“to singe”), Dutch zengen (“to singe, scorch”), German Low German sengen (“to singe”), German sengen (“to singe, scorch”), Icelandic sangur (“singed, burnt, scorched”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA