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Saint Elmo's fire

Saint Elmo's fire is the alternative spelling of St. Elmo's fire.

Meaning of St. Elmo's fire

Noun

St. Elmo's fire (usually uncountable, plural St. Elmo's fires)

  1. (usually) An electrical discharge, or corona, seen around pointed objects, caused by ionization of the atmosphere during storms.
    • I can see a new horizon, underneath a blazing sky.
      I’ll be where the eagle’s flying, higher and higher!
      Gonna be a man in motion, all I need is a pair of wheels.
      Take me where the future lies, in St. Elmo’s fire!1985 June 23, “St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)”, David Foster, John Parr (lyrics), performed by John Parr

Forms of Saint Elmo's fire

pluralSaint Elmo's fires

Questions about Saint Elmo's fire

What is Saint Elmo's fire the alternative spelling of?
Saint Elmo's fire is the alternative spelling of St. Elmo's fire.

Words near Saint Elmo's fire in the dictionary

  1. Saint Domingue
  2. Saint Dominican
  3. Saint Dominicans
  4. Saint Elias Mountains
  5. Saint Elizabeth
  6. Saint Elmo's fire
  7. Saint Elmo's fires
  8. Saint Eustatius
  9. Saint George
  10. Saint George Gingerland
  11. Saint George's Day

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Saint Elmo's fire (page history and authors); St. Elmo's fire (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: “Saint Elmo's fire.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/saint_elmo%27s_fire. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.