Bonfire

Quick meaning: Bonfire is a noun meaning A large, controlled outdoor fire lit to celebrate something or as a signal.

Meaning

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

More Meanings

1. (figuratively) Something like a bonfire (sense 1 or 2) in heat, destructiveness, ferocity, etc.
2. To destroy (something) by, or as if by, burning on a bonfire; (more generally) to burn or set alight.
3. To fire (pottery) using a bonfire.
4. To start a bonfire in (a place); to light up (a place) with a bonfire.
5. (intransitive, rare) To make, or celebrate around, a bonfire.
6. 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.
7. (obsolete) A fire lit to cremate a dead body; a funeral pyre.

Example Sentences

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.

The bells of all England rang joyously: the gutters ran with ale; and, night after night, the sky five miles round London was reddened by innumerable bonfires.

A number of towns in East Sussex, and on the borders of Kent and Surrey, make a special feature of huge bonfires and torchlight processions with fireworks on Guy Fawkes day or an early November Saturday.

Word Forms

• bonfires
• bonefire
• bonefier
• bon-fier
• bonfier
• bonfyer
• bone fyre
• bon-fire
• bonfiring
• bonfired

Synonyms for bonfire

Depending on context, synonyms include bale, balefire.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include balefire, blaze, pyre, torch, burning, fire.

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