Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The crime of intentionally and illegally setting fire to a building or other structure.
  • noun An instance of this crime.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A saddlebow; sometimes, a saddle.
  • noun In law, the malicious burning of a dwelling-house or outhouse of another.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Law) The malicious burning of a dwelling house or outhouse of another man, which by the common law is felony; the malicious and voluntary firing of a building or ship.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable The crime of setting a fire with intent to cause damage.
  • noun countable An instance of such a crime.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun malicious burning to destroy property

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Anglo-Norman, from Late Latin ārsiō, ārsiōn-, from Latin ārsus, past participle of ārdēre, to burn; see as- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Anglo-Norman and Old French arson, from the verb ardoir, from Latin ardeō. Compare ardent

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Examples

Comments

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  • Mark put this on the list because his house was the victim of a conflagration.

    November 30, 2007