bonfires

Noun

bonfire (plural bonfires)

1. A large, controlled outdoor fire lit to celebrate something or as a signal.
   • O thou art a perpetuall triumph, an euerlaſting bonefire light, […]c. 1597 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The History of Henrie the Fourth; […], quarto edition, London: […] P[eter] S[hort] for Andrew Wise, […], published 1598, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]

   Synonyms:

   bale

2. A fire lit outdoors to burn unwanted items; originally (historical), heretics or other offenders, or banned books; now, generally agricultural or garden waste, or rubbish.
   • [A]ll the inhabitauntes confortynge and exhortynge eche other to die, rather than to violate the leage and amitie that they of longe tyme had contynued with the Romaynes, by one hole assent, after that they hadde made sondry great pyles of wode and of other mater to brenne, they layde in it all...1531, Thomas Elyot, “Of Faythe or Fidelitie, Called in Latyne Fides whiche is the Fundation of Iustyce”, in Ernest Rhys, editor, The Boke Named the Governour […] (Everyman’s Library), London...
3. (figuratively) Something like a bonfire (sense 1 or 2) in heat, destructiveness, ferocity, etc.
   • And one thing I like in you, novv that you ſee / The bonefire of your Ladies ſtate burnt out, / You give it over, doe you not?1620 (first performance; published 1622), Philip Messenger [i.e., Philip Massinger]; Thomas Dekker, The Virgin Martyr; a Tragedie. […], London: […] B[ernard] A[lsop] and T[homas] F[awcet] for Thomas...
4. (obsolete) A fire lit to cremate a dead body; a funeral pyre.
   • The bodies which the plague had ſlaine were (O moſt wretched caſe) / Not caried forth to buriall now. For why ſuch ſtore there was / That ſcarce the gates were wyde inough for Coffins forth to paſſe. / So eyther lothly on the ground vnburied did they lie, / Or elſe without ſolemnitie were burnt in...1567, Ovid, “The Seventh Booke”, in Arthur Golding, transl., The XV. Bookes of P. Ouidius Naso, Entytuled Metamorphosis, […], London: […] Willyam Seres […], →OCLC, folio 90, verso

   Synonyms:

   bale

See all 8 meanings of bonfire