noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of campfire
Explanation
A campfire is a small fire that you build when you're camping. A campfire is good for cooking food, boiling water, or warming your hands. Most boy and girl scouts learn how to build a campfire, which is useful when you're hiking or camping overnight. A campfire is perfect for toasting hot dogs and marshmallows, heating water for hot chocolate, and for sitting nearby when you tell ghost stories after dark. It's important to make sure a campfire is completely extinguished before you leave your camp site.
Vocabulary lists containing campfire
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Hope was briefly sparked after a night-flying plane reported a person stoking a large campfire at Davis Lake below Mount Morgan.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2026
Britain's The Guardian newspaper said the movie "entertains us with creepy campfire tales" but the Hollywood Reporter called it a "dull existential drama" while The Wrap website described it as a "frustrating slog".
From Barron's ● Sep. 9, 2026
This film is not merely glittering debris, as some have posited, nor is it style over substance; it’s a campfire story told by Thatcher’s unearthly orator.
From Salon ● Aug. 17, 2026
Within weeks Masino pulled a U-turn, dumping the new logo, dropping the marketing firm behind it and pausing restaurant remodels, bringing back proven sellers like campfire meals and ham dinners.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026
One of our chaperones, Mr. Andrews, who is a sixth-grade homeroom teacher, has shown everyone how to build a campfire, starting with sticks placed in the shape of a teepee.
From "The Thing About Jellyfish" by Ali Benjamin
Maine’s camp culture combines rustic canoe trips and campfires with a polished social ecosystem that brings convoys of black SUVs to the state every summer.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 20, 2026
He added: "There's a substantial element within the visiting community who don't want to pay for anything, won't use the infrastructure, dump their waste into the verges and cause wildfires with the campfires and barbecues."
From BBC ● Dec. 9, 2025
In Northern California, fire-evacuation “go bags” are normal, campfires are essentially a thing of the past, and even people living outside take fire risks seriously.
From Slate ● Nov. 12, 2024
There are no campfires allowed on the South Rim or inner canyon areas.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 29, 2024
Finally, campfires dwindling, they laid out sleeping rolls for us and sang a lullaby in a lilting foreign language, and I felt pleasantly like a child.
From "Hollow City" by Ransom Riggs
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
