Pyre

//ˈpaɪɚ// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A funeral pile; a combustible heap on which corpses are burned.

    "The villagers built a funeral pyre to honor their dead."

  2. 2
    wood heaped for burning a dead body as a funeral rite wordnet
  3. 3
    Any heap or pile of combustibles.

    "Flames rose high from the pyre in the night sky."

Synonyms

All synonyms
backfirebalefirebeaconbeacon fireblazebonfire

Example

More examples

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin pyra (“pyre, funeral pile”), from Ancient Greek πυρά (purá), from πῦρ (pûr, “fire”). Doublet of fire.

Related phrases

funeral pyre

More for "pyre"

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