Word.ws English Dictionary

aflare

/əˈflɛə/US/əˈflɛɹ/

aflare adjective: flaring (blazing or shining brightly or suddenly; also figuratively, of a strong emotion).

Adjective

aflare (not comparable)

  1. Flaring (blazing or shining brightly or suddenly; also figuratively, of a strong emotion).
    • the flaming base of the opposite mountain, all luridly aflare in the windy dusk1886, Mary Noailles Murfree (as Charles Egbert Craddock), In the Clouds, Chapter 17, p. 248
    • Ho! Get to lair! The sun’s aflare / Behind the breathing grass:1895, Rudyard Kipling, “Letting in the Jungle”, in The Second Jungle Book, London: Macmillan, page 59
    Synonyms:
    ablaze, afire, aflame, alight
  2. Illuminated (with something blazing or shining).
    • […] Old Pye Street, Peter’s Street, and Duck Lane were aflare with the coarse lights of open naphtha lamps,1897, Hall Caine, The Christian, London: Heinemann, Book 3, Chapter 15, p. 331
    • He used to tell me how you two used to go down to the harbor and watch the big liners come in at night, all aflare with lights through the Golden Gate.1921, John Dos Passos, Three Soldiers, New York: George H. Doran, Part 6, p. 402
  3. Flaring (opening outward).
    • ballet skirts aflare1921, Edna Ferber, chapter 7, in The Girls, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, page 129
    • To balance like a bird with wings aflare,1960, Vassar Miller, “Return”, in Wage War on Silence, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, page 58

Examples of aflare in a sentence

  • [The dragon] kindly breathed out a little flame, which set the packet aflare for a moment.1919, Stella Benson, chapter 7, in Living Alone, London: Macmillan, published 2020, page 184:
  • […] he had not wanted to see the man when perhaps his blood was running hot and his temper aflare.1988, Jory Sherman, chapter 4, in Horne’s Law, New York: Walker and Company, page 30:
  • […] at last they reached a corridor which was aflare with dancing torchlight.1968, Michael Moorcock, “The Dreaming City”, in The Stealer of Souls and Other Stories, London: Mayflower Books, page 19:
  • The black horse paced slowly out into the open, neck arched, nostrils aflare, eyes rolling.1983, Ahdaf Soueif, Aisha, London: Black Swan, published 1985, page 163:

Synonyms of aflare

Origin of aflare

From a- + flare.

Words that rhyme with aflare

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about aflare

What does aflare mean?
Aflare means flaring (blazing or shining brightly or suddenly; also figuratively, of a strong emotion).
How do you use aflare in a sentence?
[The dragon] kindly breathed out a little flame, which set the packet aflare for a moment.
What part of speech is aflare?
Aflare is an adjective.
How do you pronounce aflare?
Aflare is pronounced /əˈflɛə/ (UK).

Words near aflare in the dictionary

  1. aflamed
  2. aflames
  3. aflaming
  4. Aflao
  5. aflap
  6. aflare
  7. aflash
  8. aflastatin
  9. aflat
  10. aflatoxicol
  11. aflatoxicosis

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: aflare (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-aflare.wav.

Cite this entry: “aflare.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/aflare. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.