Balefire

noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A bonfire, any large outdoor fire (for example those used in a funeral pyre, or in witches' rituals).

    "Rites done on a lakeshore or seashore can be illuminated with balefires of dried driftwood collected prior to the rite."

  2. 2
    a large outdoor fire that is lighted as a signal or in celebration wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
bonfireaid to navigationalarmamber lightbackfirebeacon

Example

More examples

"Rites done on a lakeshore or seashore can be illuminated with balefires of dried driftwood collected prior to the rite."

Etymology

From Middle English bale-fyre, from Old English bǣlfȳr (“balefire, funeral or sacrificial fire”); equivalent to bale (“funeral pyre”) + fire.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.