Burned or blackened by fire, turned to coal or ash.
From 'char,' possibly from Old English 'cerran' meaning 'to turn,' or from 'charcoal.' First used in the late 1600s to describe wood turned black by burning.
Medieval alchemists noticed that when you heated wood without enough oxygen, instead of burning completely, it turned to charcoal—the key ingredient that revolutionized metallurgy and cooking for centuries. The blackness of 'charred' stuff literally changed human civilization by making better tools possible!
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