burning alive
Flames consuming someone
Burning alive is death by fire while still conscious—historically used as a method of execution for heretics, witches, and traitors.
The phrase emphasizes the victim's awareness during immolation: They burned her alive at the stake.
It can describe accidental deaths where someone is trapped: Passengers were burned alive in the wreckage.
The image is invoked for emphasis in less literal contexts: The fever made me feel like I was burning alive.
- flamesVisible burning combustion
- going up in flamesBeing destroyed by fire
- pyreFuneral burning heap
- funeral pyreOutdoor body-burning structure
- stakeSharpened post or share
immolation · screaming · agony · charred · smoke · execution · witch · Salem witch trials · heretic · Joan of Arc · trial by fire · inferno · flesh · torment · slow death · martyrdom · cremation · bonfire
- punishmentsjail, prison, timeout, grounded, fine
- atrocitiesHolocaust, genocide, massacre, massacres, ethnic cleansing
- torturerack, the rack, thumbscrew, thumbscrews, iron maiden
- Christian persecutionNero, Colosseum, crucifixion, martyrdom, early church
burning alivelethal injection
Capital punishment by needle
drowning · hypothermia · euthanasia · suffocation · asphyxiation
burn, burning, alive, live, burns, burned, burnt, burner, burners