Fireball

How to spell fireball

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce fireball

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does fireball mean?

1. nounA roughly spherical mass of fire, especially one produced by an explosion.
2. nounAn unusually bright meteor seen streaking across the sky.
3. nounAn informal term for a highly energetic, driven person.

Fireball in a sentence

• The gas leak ignited and a fireball erupted from the kitchen.

• Astronomers reported a green fireball crossing the night sky over the coast.

• The new sales manager is a real fireball who closes deals before lunch.

• Witnesses described a fireball rising above the crashed tanker.

• The camera on the dashboard captured a fireball blazing toward the horizon.

• At eighty, my grandmother is still a fireball who organises the whole street.

Where does fireball come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent English compound, joining 'fire' and 'ball', both of which are old native words. 'Fire' descends from Old English fyr, which traces back to a Proto-Germanic root and ultimately a Proto-Indo-European term for fire as a thing or substance, distinct from fire as a living force. 'Ball' comes from a Germanic root meaning a rounded object or sphere, and reached English partly through Old Norse boll. The two were welded together by the 1500s to describe a literal ball of flame, and the word later picked up vivid extended uses for a meteor streaking across the sky, a spicy sweet, and an energetic, dynamic person. Because both halves are common, plain words, the spelling holds no real surprises beyond remembering it is written as one solid word.

How the word is built

• fire (Old English fyr: flame)
• ball (rounded mass)