Disaster Area: Inferno Lingo: Fire Vocabulary

A Germanic word, via Old English, blaze originally meant "torch." Now it refers to any vigorous fire, and also a white patch on a horse's nose or a painted mark identifying a trail in the woods: other bright things that get your attention. To blaze a trail is to cut a new path, either literally or figuratively.

Conflagration is Latin, from the verb conflagrare, meaning "to catch fire." Flagrant, meaning "conspicuous" or "obvious," which usually describes a crime or other transgression, comes from the same root.

From the Old English ǽmerge, embers are the coals left after a fire is mostly burned out. Cooks know that the real secret to grilling is to wait until the flames are gone, and to use the radiant heat from the embers to get that perfect char on your food.

Ignition, like conflagration, is Latin, a noun of action derived from a verb. In this case, the verb ignire means "to light on fire." We use it today to describe everything from turning the key to start your car — which causes a spark to ignite gasoline vapor in the engine — to the moment a rocket's engines light up, right before "blast off."

Another Latin word, incendium means "fire" or "burning." We get the word cinder, a little bit of partially burned wood or coal, from it as well. Cinderella gets her name from cinder, in that one of her jobs was to clean out the fireplace, which is dirty work, resulting in skin and clothes covered in soot.

Inferno is the Italian word for Hell, from the late Latin infernus. Dante, the great poet of the Renaissance, used Inferno as the title the first volume of his Divine Comedy. Any raging, out-of-control fire can be called an inferno.

Inflame originally meant "to set on fire" but you'll often see it today describing political unrest or illness. In the former case it's metaphorical, referring to something or someone that enrages people into demonstrations or violence. In the latter case, inflammation can be a sign of disease, where tissues become sore and swollen in response to infection or an irritant.

Fire needs oxygen, so a fire is a rapid form of oxidation. Rusting metal is a much, much slower form; that rusty red color is iron oxide.

Pira means "fire" in Ancient Greek, which became pyra in Latin, specifically associated with cremation. That meaning carried into English; you will still often see pyre used in the phrase funeral pyre, though it can also refer to any large bonfire. A pyromaniac is someone who is obsessed with lighting fires.

Long before it was a dating app, tinder was a Germanic word referring to the dried bits of plant matter, cloth, or mushrooms used to start fires. A spark was created using friction or a flint and steel, and the spark would ignite the tinder, which could then be used to light kindling, above, which would in turn ignite larger logs. A tinderbox was the container used to carry these essential fire-making tools before the invention of matches.