English Explanatory Dictionary

Burned-Over District

English dictionary entry

Meanings

name
  1. A nickname for portions of Western New York State, where there was much religious fervor during the Second Great Awakening.
name
  1. Alternative letter-case form of Burned-Over District.

Word forms

Burned-Over District

Etymology

Coined by Charles Grandison Finney, who in his 1876 book Autobiography of Charles G. Finney referred to a "burnt district" to denote an area in central and western New York State during the Second Great Awakening. He felt that the area had been so heavily evangelized as to have no "fuel" (unconverted population) left over to "burn" (convert).

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
Back to search All on B Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary