Fireworks

How to spell fireworks

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce fireworks

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does fireworks mean?

1. nounDevices packed with gunpowder that explode into coloured light and noise for entertainment.

Fireworks in a sentence

• The town set off fireworks over the harbour at midnight.

• Crowds gathered on the bridge to watch the fireworks light up the sky.

Where does fireworks come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent English compound joining 'fire' and 'works', and it tells its own story. The first element comes from Old English 'fyr', the ordinary word for flame, which goes back to a Proto-Germanic root shared with the Dutch 'vuur' and German 'Feuer'. The second element, 'works', is the plural of 'work', also an old Germanic word for a thing made or fashioned, used in the sense of a manufactured device or contrivance. The two were yoked together in the sixteenth century, when pyrotechnic displays of gunpowder packed into tubes began arriving in Europe, and 'fireworks' came to name exactly those exploding novelties. Because both parts are plain everyday English, the spelling holds no foreign surprises; the only thing to watch is that it is written as one solid word, not two.

How the word is built

• fire (Old English fyr: flame)
• works (plural of work: a made device)