Bonfire: A Large Outdoor Fire With a Grim Old Name
A bonfire is a big fire built outdoors for celebration or for burning rubbish. The first part is not French for good — it is bone.
A bonfire is a large fire lit in the open air, either to mark an occasion or to dispose of garden waste. Many people assume the name comes from French bon, good. It does not: the earliest spellings are bone-fire, a fire in which bones were burnt.
- A large outdoor fire. *They built a bonfire on the beach.*
- A fire for burning waste. *A bonfire of hedge cuttings.*
- A sweeping destruction (figurative). *A bonfire of regulations.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | bonfire | A roaring bonfire. |
| Compound | Bonfire Night | Fireworks on Bonfire Night. |
| Related | beacon | A hilltop beacon. |
| Related | pyre | A funeral pyre. |
| Related | campfire | Songs round the campfire. |
How it is used in a sentence
- We had a bonfire at the end of the summer.The ordinary garden or beach sense.
- Bonfire Night falls on the fifth of November.Also called Guy Fawkes Night in Britain.
- The minister promised a bonfire of red tape.A political cliché for scrapping rules in bulk.
Bonfire, campfire, pyre and beacon
- Bonfire — large, outdoors, for celebration or clearance
- Campfire — small and practical, for warmth and cooking
- Pyre — built to burn a body
- Beacon — lit high up as a signal, not for heat
The bone-fire spelling is recorded from the fifteenth century and describes exactly what it says: bones from butchery burnt in the open. The vowel shortened, the origin was forgotten, and the false French connection has been repeated ever since.
Is bonfire related to French bon?
No, though the resemblance is convincing. Every early record spells it as bone.
What is a bonfire of the vanities?
A burning of luxuries and artworks in Florence in 1497, and now a phrase for any public destruction of things thought corrupting.