Fire

How to spell fire

4 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce fire

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does fire mean?

1. nounThe visible heat, flames, and light produced when something burns.
2. verbTo dismiss someone from a job or position.
3. verbTo discharge a gun or launch a projectile.

Fire in a sentence

• noun

  The campers built a small fire to keep warm overnight.

• verb

  The manager threatened to fire anyone who arrived late again.

• verb

  The soldiers were ordered not to fire until the signal was given.

• noun

  Smoke from the kitchen fire set off every alarm in the building.

• verb

  The board voted to fire the chief executive after the scandal.

• verb

  The range instructor showed recruits how to fire a rifle safely.

Where does fire come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Fire is one of the oldest words in English, descending directly from the Old English fȳr, which simply meant flame or burning. That word came from a Proto-Germanic root fūr, and it has close cousins across the family, including the German Feuer and the Dutch vuur. Linguists trace it back further to an ancient Indo-European root that referred to fire as a thing or substance, as opposed to a separate root that treated fire as a living force. The familiar English spelling settled over the medieval period, when the older fȳr drifted toward fier and finally fire, leaving us with the silent feel of the trailing -re after the long 'i' sound. Because it is such a basic, everyday word, its spelling has stayed remarkably stable for over a thousand years.

How the word is built

• fire (from Old English fȳr: flame, burning), a single native root with no affixes