Burnfire
noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A bonfire. nonstandard
"It may ha' been wicked, but there 'twas, an' the thought kep' arter me, till all I could think of was the chist; an' byme-by I says to Mary Ellen, one mornin', ' Le's open it to-day an' make a burnfire !'"
Example
More examples"It may ha' been wicked, but there 'twas, an' the thought kep' arter me, till all I could think of was the chist; an' byme-by I says to Mary Ellen, one mornin', ' Le's open it to-day an' make a burnfire !'"
Etymology
An alteration (due to its association with burn) of Early Modern English boonfire, bondfire, bounfire (“bonfire”). More at bonfire.
More for "burnfire"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.