bonfire

CEFRB2

/ˈbɒnfaɪəɹ/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A large outdoor fire.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    A fire lit outdoors to burn unwanted items; originally (historical), heretics or other offenders, or banned books; now, generally agricultural or garden waste, or rubbish.

Examples

  • We stayed around the bonfire telling jokes and horror stories.

  • Let's build a bonfire!

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5

Also pronounced

  • [ˈbɒɱˌfaɪ̯ɚ]
  • /ˈbɑnˌfaɪɚ/

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. Something like a bonfire (sense 1 or 2) in heat, destructiveness, ferocity, etc.

  2. A large, controlled outdoor fire lit to celebrate something or as a signal.

  3. A fire lit to cremate a dead body; a funeral pyre.

More examples

In context

  • O thou art a perpetuall triumph, an euerlaſting bonefire light, […]

  • I had thought to haue let in ſome of all Profeſſions, that goe the Primroſe way to th'euerlasting Bonfire.

  • [L]ike the Christmas joke of snapdragons for children, the very liquor was to be bonfired also, and drank burning.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

We gathered dry wood to build a large blank for the autumn celebration.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

PIE word *péh₂wr̥ From Middle English bonnefyre (“a fire in which bones are burnt, bonfire”) [and other forms], by surface analysis, bone + fire. Replaced earlier Middle English bale-fyre, from Old English bǣlfȳr (see balefire). The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) notes that bonfires, originally lit as part of midsummer celebrations, were not generally associated with the burning of bones. However, the first edition of the OED (under the title A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 1887) stated that “for the annual midsummer ‘banefire’ or ‘bonfire’ in the burgh of Hawick [in Roxburghshire, Scotland], old bones were regularly collected and stored up, down to c. 1800”. The verb is...