bonfire
[bon-fahyuh r]
- a large fire built in the open air, for warmth, entertainment, or celebration, to burn leaves, garbage, etc., or as a signal.
- any fire built in the open.
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Origin of bonfire
1375–1425; late Middle English bone fire, i.e., a fire with bones for fuel
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for bonfire
Contemporary Examples
Marc Wortman is the author, among other books, of The Bonfire: The Siege and Burning of Atlanta.
In one corner, a pile of Apple iPads and Google glasses are torched in a bonfire.
Everyone wanted to know the outcome of in this tropical version of Bonfire of the Vanities.
Some have said that about my book, The Bonfire, about Atlanta in the Civil War.
But Bonfire of the Vanities this is not, and that is unfortunate, though the cultural references might be spot on.
Historical Examples
Let us get to windward and see what they are doing on the other side of the bonfire.
Earth's Holocaust (From "Mosses From An Old Manse")Nathaniel Hawthorne
As if he were not capable of controlling a raft or a bonfire!
The Foolish LoversSt. John G. Ervine
She had a black smudge from the end of the beanpole, which had been in a bonfire, across her forehead.
W. A. G.'s TaleMargaret Turnbull
If I should try just once to tell her what she ought to do she'd flare up like a bonfire.
Kent Knowles: QuahaugJoseph C. Lincoln
Her face flamed at him, the bonfire's light when prejudice is burned.
The PrisonerAlice Brown
bonfire
- a large outdoor fire
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Word Origin
C15: alteration (through influence of French bon good) of bone-fire; from the use of bones as fuel
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for bonfire
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper