Word.ws English Dictionary

firefall

firefall noun: a summertime event held in Yosemite National Park from 1872 to 1968, in which burning hot embers were spilled from the top of Glacier Point to the valley below, giving the appearance of a glowing waterfall.

firefall: a summertime event held in Yosemite National Park from 1872 to 1968, in which burning hot embers...
Image: Ambitious Wench, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

firefall (plural firefalls)

  1. (historical) A summertime event held in Yosemite National Park from 1872 to 1968, in which burning hot embers were spilled from the top of Glacier Point to the valley below, giving the appearance of a glowing waterfall.
  2. The phenomenon whereby Horsetail Fall, a seasonal waterfall in Yosemite National Park, is illuminated by the sunset so that it glows orange-red.

Forms of firefall

pluralfirefalls

Origin of firefall

From fire + fall, modelled on waterfall.

Questions about firefall

What does firefall mean?
Firefall means a summertime event held in Yosemite National Park from 1872 to 1968, in which burning hot embers were spilled from the top of Glacier Point to the valley below, giving the appearance of a glowing waterfall.
What part of speech is firefall?
Firefall is a noun.
What is the plural of firefall?
The plural of firefall is firefalls.

Words near firefall in the dictionary

  1. firedrakes
  2. firee
  3. fireeater
  4. fireeaters
  5. firees
  6. firefall
  7. firefalls
  8. firefan
  9. firefang
  10. firefanged
  11. firefanging

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: firefall (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.

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