fireball
Americannoun
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a ball of fire, as the sun; a shooting star.
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a luminous meteor, sometimes exploding.
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lightning having the appearance of a globe of fire; ball lightning.
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the highly luminous central portion of a nuclear explosion.
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a ball filled with explosive or combustible material, used as a projectile to injure the enemy by explosion or to set fire to their works.
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Informal. an exceptionally energetic or ambitious person.
noun
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a ball-shaped discharge of lightning
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the bright spherical region of hot ionized gas at the centre of a nuclear explosion
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astronomy another name for bolide
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slang an energetic person
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of fireball
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:
To investigate these processes, the team used a plasma flow reactor designed to mimic part of the environment inside a nuclear fireball.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 3, 2026
Victor Glover said re-entry was like riding a fireball through the atmosphere.
From BBC ● Apr. 11, 2026
When it does, the agency expects to lose communication for about six minutes as the Orion capsule holding the astronauts is enveloped in a fireball.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 10, 2026
In the early hours of February 19, 2025, the upper stage of a Falcon 9 rocket was tumbling back to Earth when it exploded into a fireball that made headlines from the UK to Poland.
From Barron's ● Feb. 19, 2026
He watched a huge yellow fireball rise and grow, turning orange, then red, kicking up towering swirls of dust, boiling itself into the shape of a giant mushroom.
From "Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown" by Steve Sheinkin
Larger incoming objects, such as boulder sized rocks that create especially bright flashes, are known as bolides or fireballs.
From Science Daily ● May 14, 2026
As it blazed through Earth's atmosphere, the rocket vaporised into fireballs over Ireland, England, and Germany before it finally struck Earth.
From BBC ● Feb. 19, 2026
Video images of the fireballs circled the globe.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 20, 2026
Sometimes meteors can even appear brighter than the planet Venus – these are called fireballs, external.
From BBC ● Oct. 17, 2025
Junior flicks his wrists, and fireballs appear in his palms.
From "The Manifestor Prophecy" by Angie Thomas
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.
