Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A balloon beneath and attached to which is a fire by which the air contained in it is heated and rarefied, thus causing it to rise.
- noun A balloon sent up at night with fireworks, which ignite at a regulated height.
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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Making a fire-balloon, putting a penny on a railway line and letting the train flatten it, or chasing a fire engine to see what disaster lay in store at the end of the journey kept him alive and alert.
Storyteller Donald Sturrock 2010
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In "The Armadillo," Bishop describes a glorious fire-balloon display raining down in the Brazilian night, forcing a glistening armadillo from his hiding place.
A Friendship in Letters Dinitia Smith 2008
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Presently the blood-red sun sank like a fire-balloon into the west, flushing with its last fierce beams the higher clouds of the eastern sky, and lighting the white and black plume of the soaring fish-eagle.
Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo 2003
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In 1783, before the Montgolfier brothers had built their fire-balloon, and Charles, the physician, had devised his first aerostat, a few adventurous spirits had dreamt of the conquest of space by mechanical means.
Robur the Conqueror 2003
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The first public ascent of a fire-balloon in France, in 1783, led to an experiment on the part of
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This was formed by a singular combination of balloons -- one inflated with hydrogen gas, and the other a fire-balloon.
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Then Montgolfier was busier still, and on November 21st, in a fire-balloon specially decorated for such a great occasion, two gentlemen, named Pilâtre de Rozier and D'Arlande, made the first ascent.
Chatterbox, 1905. Various
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The work was nearly finished when Roziers went up in his fire-balloon from La Muette.
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Many friends of girls send much beautiful lanterns, some look like fish, some look like bird, some like fire-balloon - all most large and bright.
Seven Maids of Far Cathay Ed. Bing Ding
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During the last twenty years they have been as the sands on the seashore for multitude, yet I think one would be hard set to name a dozen of them whose titles even are still on the lips of men -- whereas several quieter books published during that same period, unheralded by trumpet or fire-balloon, are seen serenely to be ascending to a sure place in the literary firmament.
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