Both are correct past forms of <em>burn</em>, and neither is a mistake. The reliable split is by job, not by country: <strong>burnt</strong> is the normal choice before a noun — <em>burnt toast, a burnt-out engine</em> — while <strong>burned</strong> is the more common verb, especially in American English: <em>the candle burned for hours</em>. British writers use burnt for the verb far more freely than American ones.
The core difference
English has a small family of verbs with two past forms — learned/learnt, dreamed/dreamt, spelled/spelt, spoiled/spoilt — and burn is one of them. There is no meaning difference. What varies is dialect and grammatical role.
How American English handles it
American writers use burned as the past tense and past participle almost without exception: she burned the letters, the barn had burned down. Burnt survives in America chiefly as an adjective sitting in front of a noun — burnt sienna, burnt orange, the burnt edges of the pie — and in fixed phrases such as burnt offering.
How British English handles it
British writers accept both for the verb and choose largely by ear: I burnt the toast and I burned the toast are equally natural in Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Corpus evidence shows burned gaining ground in British writing over recent decades, but burnt is nowhere near obsolete there.
The test
Ask: is the word acting as a description in front of a noun? If yes, use burnt and you will be safe on either side of the Atlantic — burnt toast, burnt-out, a burnt taste. If it is doing the work of a verb after a subject, use burned for the widest acceptance — the fire burned, he has burned his hand. British readers will accept burnt there too; American readers may find it quaint.
Set phrases that do not bend
- burnt sienna and burnt umber — pigment names, always burnt.
- burnt out as an adjective for exhaustion: she was completely burnt out (British) / burned out (American).
- burned a CD, burned through the budget — the figurative modern senses almost always take burned.
The rule that matters most
Be consistent within a single piece of writing. Mixing the fire burned all night with he had burnt his fingers two paragraphs later looks careless, even though each sentence is defensible on its own. Choose the form your audience expects and stay with it — and apply the same choice to learned/learnt and spelled/spelt while you are at it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is "burnt" wrong in American English?
Not wrong, but limited. Americans use burnt comfortably as an adjective — burnt toast, burnt orange — and rarely as a verb. Writing "I burnt dinner" in American copy will read as British.
Is it burned out or burnt out?
Both. British English favours "burnt out" for exhaustion and for a gutted building; American English favours "burned out" in both senses. The hyphenated adjective before a noun ("a burnt-out car") tends towards burnt everywhere.
Which should I use in an exam or formal essay?
Either is acceptable to examiners. Match the dialect you are writing in — burned for American English, either for British — and keep it consistent throughout the piece.