Word.ws English Dictionary

over-fire

over-fire is the alternative form of overfire.

Meaning of overfire

Verb

overfire (third-person singular simple present overfires, present participle overfiring, simple past and past participle overfired)

  1. (transitive) To create too large a fire in a fireplace, furnace, firebox, etc.
    • I found that the Chapelon steamed almost too freely, because on a strange locomotive and road one usually tends to overfire a little through a natural lack of confidence.1961 February, ""Balmore"", “Driving and firing modern French steam locomotives - Part One”, in Trains Illustrated, page 110
    Synonyms:
    overstoke
  2. (transitive) To fire at a high (or excessively high) temperature.
    • BUBBLES IN GLAZE may be caused by too heavy an application, or by severe underfiring or overfiring. [...] LOSS OF COLOR IN CHINA PAINTING is a result of overfiring or mixing too much medium with the paint. Be careful not to overfire china colors, and if a light shade of a dark color is needed...[20th century], Installing and Operating Paragon P-Series Electric Kilns [instruction manual], Dallas, Tex.: Paragon Industries, page 19
    Antonyms:
    underfire
  3. (transitive) Of a cell or group of cells: to fire excessively.
    • Geoffery Schultz, a student of [Ronald] Melzack, has recently conducted a study showing that visual hallucinations need not be caused by psychopathology but may result from the disruption of sensory input among patients suffering eye damage. The neuromatrix, in Melzack's theory, overfires its...2003, Ariel Glucklich, Sacred Pain: Hurting the Body for the Sake of the Soul, Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 57
    Antonyms:
    underfire

See all 4 meanings of overfire

Forms of over-fire

third-person singular presentover-fires
present participleover-firing
past participleover-fired
pastover-fired

Origin of over-fire

From over- + fire.

Questions about over-fire

What is over-fire the alternative form of?
Over-fire is the alternative form of overfire.

Words near over-fire in the dictionary

  1. over-estimated
  2. over-excitement
  3. over-extension
  4. over-extensions
  5. over-feeble
  6. over-fire
  7. over-fired
  8. over-fires
  9. over-firing
  10. over-fond
  11. over-genderization

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: over-fire (page history and authors); overfire (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: “over-fire.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/over-fire. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.