Flammable

How to spell flammable

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce flammable

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does flammable mean?

1. adjectiveEasily set on fire and capable of burning quickly.

Flammable in a sentence

• The warehouse stored several drums of highly flammable solvent.

• The courier refused to carry the parcel because its contents were flammable.

Where does flammable come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb flammare, meaning 'to set on fire' or 'to blaze', which was itself built on the noun flamma, meaning 'flame'. English actually had an older word, 'inflammable', borrowed through French from the Latin inflammare ('to kindle'), and that word also meant 'easily set on fire'. The trouble was that the in- prefix looked to many readers like the negative in- (as in 'invisible'), so people wrongly assumed 'inflammable' meant 'fireproof'. To remove this dangerous confusion, safety bodies and labelling authorities in the early twentieth century promoted 'flammable', formed straightforwardly from the same flamma root plus the suffix -able. Remembering that the heart of the word is simply 'flame' plus '-able' helps fix the doubled m, which echoes the original Latin flamma.

How the word is built

• flamm- (from Latin flamma: flame)
• -able (capable of, suffix forming adjectives)