fire

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It looks like the fire is almost wanting to reach out like with a hand from one side of the road to the other.

—CNN Transcript Oct 24, 2007

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Definitions (157)

American Heritage Dictionary (47)

noun A rapid, persistent chemical change that releases heat and light and is accompanied by flame, especially the exothermic oxidation of a combustible substance.
noun Burning fuel or other material: a cooking fire; a forest fire.
noun Burning intensity of feeling; ardor. See Synonyms at passion.

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Century Dictionary (89)

The visible heat, or light, evolved by the action of a high temperature on certain bodies, which are in consequence styled inflammable or combustible; combustion, or the heat and light evolved during the process of combustion. Anciently, fire, air, earth, and water were regarded as the four elements of which all things are composed; and fire continued until comparatively recent times to be considered a distinct imponderable substance, existing throughout the universe in the supposed form of caloric. See combustion, flame. The Lindsays flew like fire about, Till all the fray was done. Battle of Otterbourne (Child's Ballads, VII. 24). Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow As seek to quench the fire of love with words. Shak., T. G. of V., ii. 7. Wheresoe'er I am, by night and day, All earth and air seem only burning fire. Tennyson, Œnone. In popular language, the word element is often referred to fire, air, earth, and water. A very slight acquaintance with chemistry is sufficient to prove that air, earth, and water are compound bodies, and that fire is mainly the result of a high temperature on certain bodies. W. A. Miller, Elem. of Chem., § 1.
Fuel in a state of combustion, as on a hearth or the ground, or in a grate, stove, or furnace; a burning mass of material lighted for the sake of warmth or for the utilization of the heat or light from it. Bryng in fyre on alhalawgh day, To condulmas euen, I dar welle say. Babees Book (E. E. T. S.), p. 311. And ther with owt the Door in the Courte, on the left honde, ys a tree with many stonys a bowght it, wher the ministres of the Jewys and Seynt Petir with them warmyd them by the ffyer. Torkington, Diarie of Eng. Travell, p. 35. Now the king sat in the winterhouse in the ninth month: and there was a fire on the hearth burning before him. Jer. xxxvi. 22. In winter's tedious nights sit by the fire With good old folks. Shak., Rich. II., v. 1.
The burning of any large collection of material, as a building, town, forest, etc.; a conflagration: as, the great fire of London or of Chicago; a forest or a prairie fire. A fyre is foul affray in thinges drie. Palladius, Husbondrie (E. E. T. S.), p. 28. Where two raging fires meet together, They do consume the thing that feeds their fury. Shak., T. of the S., ii. 1. Grub-street! thy fall should men and gods conspire, Thy stage shall stand, ensure it but from fire. Pope, Dunciad, iii. 3. Till the last fire burn all between the poles. Cowper, Conversation, l. 756.

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Examples

At night we made the attempt, and succeeded in firing the buildings several times, but without effect, as the fire was always instantly extinguished. — Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk
It looks like the fire is almost wanting to reach out like with a hand from one side of the road to the other. — CNN Transcript Oct 24, 2007
HOLMES: All right, and again I want to make sure that this fire was absolutely exclusive to this ship it did not spread anywhere else, it was not a part of any other fire or anything else happening at the shipyard at the time. — CNN Transcript Sep 15, 2007
Belike the fire was an earth-fire, and for the rest we saw wrong in the moonlight. " — The Well at the World's End: a tale
His voice became a mesmeric whisper. — Conan the Defender

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light · flame · shoot · force · sound · line · body · weapon · attack · blood · sun · house

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

Middle English fir, from Old English fȳr; see paəwr̥ in Indo-European roots.

Century Dictionary (2)

Early modern English also fyre; from Middle English fire, fir, fyre, fyr, fier, fyer, fur, etc., from Anglo-Saxon fy¯r = Old Saxon fiur = OFries. fior, fiur = Dutch vier, vuur = Middle Low German vūr, viur, vuir, vuer, Low German vür, vüer = Old High German fuir, later fiur, Middle High German vuir, viur, German feuer = Icelandic fy¯ri (and. poetical fürr) = Swedish Danish fyr = Umbrian pir = Greek πῦρ, fire (later English pyre, q. v.), dial. πύϊρ, (cf. πυρσός, a torch). Different words are used in Gothic (Moesogothic) (fōn, genitive fūnins, fire; cf. Icelandic funi, a flame), in L. and Sanskrit (Latin ignis = Sanskrit agni, fire), and in Roman (Italian fuoco = Spanish fuego = Portuguese fogo = French feu, fire, from Latin focus, fireplace: see fuel, focus).
from Middle English firen, fyren, furen, set on fire, expose to fire, animate, from Anglo-Saxon fy¯rian, found only in the sense of ‘give warmth to,’ = Dutch vuren = Middle Low German vuren, Low German füren = Swedish fyra = Danish fyre, fire; from the noun.

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/faɪr/

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