CONFLAGRATION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does conflagration mean? 

• CONFLAGRATION (noun)
  The noun CONFLAGRATION has 1 sense:

1. a very intense and uncontrolled fire

  Familiarity information: CONFLAGRATION used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CONFLAGRATION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A very intense and uncontrolled fire

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Synonyms:

conflagration; inferno

Hypernyms ("conflagration" is a kind of...):

fire (the event of something burning (often destructive))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "conflagration"):

wildfire (a raging and rapidly spreading conflagration)

 Context examples 

The engines were soon upon the spot, but the dry wood burned with great fury, and it was impossible to arrest the conflagration until the stack had been entirely consumed.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The light of that conflagration will fade away; my ashes will be swept into the sea by the winds.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Thinking that my aunt might have relapsed into one of her old alarms, and might be watching the progress of some imaginary conflagration in the distance, I went to speak to her.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The grim blackness of the stones told by what fate the Hall had fallen—by conflagration: but how kindled?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

While this attack lasted, the family lived in constant fear of a conflagration, for the odor of burning wood pervaded the house at all hours, smoke issued from attic and shed with alarming frequency, red-hot pokers lay about promiscuously, and Hannah never went to bed without a pail of water and the dinner bell at her door in case of fire.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

A great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over heaven, but the wind was continually charging and routing these embattled vapours; so that as the cab crawled from street to street, Mr. Utterson beheld a marvelous number of degrees and hues of twilight; for here it would be dark like the back-end of evening; and there would be a glow of a rich, lurid brown, like the light of some strange conflagration; and here, for a moment, the fog would be quite broken up, and a haggard shaft of daylight would glance in between the swirling wreaths.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

She made a great point of being so near the river, in case of a conflagration; and I suppose really did find some satisfaction in that circumstance.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I hardly heard Mrs. Fairfax's account of the curtain conflagration during dinner, so much was I occupied in puzzling my brains over the enigmatical character of Grace Poole, and still more in pondering the problem of her position at Thornfield and questioning why she had not been given into custody that morning, or, at the very least, dismissed from her master's service.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)