bonfire

English

bonfire (large controlled outside fire).

Alternative forms

• bone-fire (obsolete)
• burnfire

Etymology

From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Middle English bonefire, bonefyre, banefyre (“a fire in which bones are burnt”), equivalent to bone +‎ fire. Cognate with Scots banefire (“bonfire”). More at bone, fire.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbɒnfaɪə/
• IPA^(key): /ˈbɑnfaɪɚ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

bonfire (plural bonfires)

1. (obsolete) A fire in which bones are burned.
2. A fire to burn unwanted or disreputable items or people: proscribed books, heretics etc.
3. A large, controlled outdoor fire, as a signal or to celebrate something.

Derived terms

• Bonfire Night

Translations

fire to burn unwanted items or people

• Armenian: խարույկ (hy) (xaruyk)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 篝火 (zh) (gōuhuǒ)

• Dutch: brandstapel (nl)
• Esperanto: rubfajro
• Finnish: rovio (fi)
• French: bûcher (fr) m
• Galician: fogueira (gl) f, lumeirada (gl) f
• German: Scheiterhaufen (de) m
• Hungarian: máglya (hu)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Irish: tine chnámh f
• Italian: rogo (it) m (for corpses or people), falò (it) m (for unwanted items)
• Lithuanian: laužas (lt) m
• Polish: stos (pl) m
• Portuguese: fogueira (pt) f
• Romanian: rug (ro) n
• Russian: костёр (ru) m (kostjór)
• Serbo-Croatian: lomača (sh) f, ломача f
• Spanish: hoguera (es) f

large, outdoor controlled fire

• Armenian: խարույկ (hy) (xaruyk)
• Belarusian: во́гнішча n (vóhnišča), касцёр m (kascjór)
• Breton: tantad (br) m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 篝火 (zh) (gōuhuǒ)

• Czech: táborák m
• Dutch: vreugdevuur (nl) n
• Esperanto: rubfajro, festfajro
• Finnish: kokko (fi), rovio (fi), nuotio (fi)
• French: feu de joie (fr) m
• Galician: cacharela (gl) f, fogueira (gl) f, lumeirada (gl) f
• German: Freudenfeuer n
• Hungarian: örömtűz (hu)
• Icelandic: bál (is) n, varðeldur (is) m
• Irish: tine chnámh f
• Italian: falò (it) m
• Japanese: 焚き火 (ja), たき火 (たきび, takibi), 篝火, かがり火 (かがりび, kagaribi)
• Korean: 화톳불 (hwatotbul), 모닥불 (modakbul)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Latvian: ugunskurs m
• Lithuanian: laužas (lt) m
• Macedonian: логорски оган m (logorski ogan)
• Norman: fouée f, feu d'jouaie m
• Norwegian: bål n
• Okinawan: please add this translation if you can
• Polish: ognisko (pl) n
• Portuguese: fogueira (pt) f
• Romanian: please add this translation if you can
• Russian: костёр (ru) m (kostjór)
• Slovak: táborák m
• Slovene: kres (sl) m inan
• Spanish: fogata f
• Swedish: bål (sv), lägereld, brasa (sv)
• Tibetan: please add this translation if you can
• Ukrainian: бага́ття (uk) n (baháttja), во́гнище (uk) n (vóhnyšče)
• Welsh: coelcerth (cy) f

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Georgian: ^{(please verify)} ჭიაკოკონა (č̣iaḳoḳona), ^{(please verify)} კოცონი (ḳoconi)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

See also

• balefire
• bale

Verb

bonfire (third-person singular simple present bonfir, present participle es, simple past and past participle bonfired)

1. To fire (pottery) using a bonfire.
   • 2000, Moira Vincentelli, Women and Ceramics: Gendered Vessels, Manchester University Press (→ISBN), page 42:

     Most women's traditions involve open firing such as bonfiring, pitfiring, or a fire surrounded by a low wall. More unusually, in Cyprus, Colombia and the Canaries individual potters have their own kilns.

   • 2004, Moira Vincentelli, Women Potters: Transforming Traditions, Rutgers University Press (→ISBN), page 212:

     Bonfiring has a very direct contact between the pottery and the flame. Firing time is usually quite short and the pots are carefully supervised through the process. Bonfiring, in general, does not create the same amount of wasters as kiln firing ...

   • 2018, Kerstin Pinther, Alexandra Weigand, Flow of Forms / Forms of Flow: Design Histories between Africa and Europe, transcript Verlag (→ISBN), page 102:

     [...] while open bonfiring was practiced mainly by women and universally used in African traditions where it has a very low failure rate. It has been characterized as technically simple though in fact it requires a hyper refined combination of specific clay body, fuel, firing technique and atmospheric conditions - formulas derived from local experimentation mainly by generations of women.

2. To make, or celebrate around, a bonfire.
   • 2014, Joan Rust, Anniecat Chronicles, Xlibris Corporation (→ISBN), page 131:

     [...] are all bar-b-quing, swimming, jetskiing, bonfiring, and the next thing you know everyone is gone, leaving the house empty [...]

   • 2016, Alexandra Sirowy, The Telling (→ISBN), cover summary:

     She could only dream about bonfiring with the populars.

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