| / English Dictionary |
FLAMING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The process of combustion of inflammable materials producing heat and light and (often) smoke
Example:
fire was one of our ancestors' first discoveries
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural processes
Hypernyms ("flaming" is a kind of...):
burning; combustion (a process in which a substance reacts with oxygen to give heat and light)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "flaming"):
blaze; blazing (a strong flame that burns brightly)
flare (a sudden burst of flame)
ignition (the process of initiating combustion or catching fire)
Derivation:
flame (be in flames or aflame)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Very intense
Example:
flaming passions
Synonyms:
fiery; flaming
Classified under:
Similar:
hot (extended meanings; especially of psychological heat; marked by intensity or vehemence especially of passion or enthusiasm)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Informal intensifiers
Example:
you flaming idiot
Synonyms:
bally; blinking; bloody; blooming; crashing; flaming; fucking
Classified under:
Similar:
unmitigated (not diminished or moderated in intensity or severity; sometimes used as an intensifier)
III. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb flame
Context examples:
He told us of the globe, a huge mass of flaming gas, flaring through the heavens.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Fancy came out of the darkened room and lured him on, a thing of flaming brightness.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
He seemed to devour me with his flaming glance: physically, I felt, at the moment, powerless as stubble exposed to the draught and glow of a furnace: mentally, I still possessed my soul, and with it the certainty of ultimate safety.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Heavy bands of astrakhan were slashed across the sleeves and fronts of his double-breasted coat, while the deep blue cloak which was thrown over his shoulders was lined with flame-coloured silk and secured at the neck with a brooch which consisted of a single flaming beryl.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Then, like one from the dead, he sprang upright, eyes flaming, sweat pouring down his face, shouting: I licked you, Cheese-Face! It took me eleven years, but I licked you!
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
But he noted that Brissenden had what Professor Caldwell lacked—namely, fire, the flashing insight and perception, the flaming uncontrol of genius.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
The poem swung in majestic rhythm to the cool tumult of interstellar conflict, to the onset of starry hosts, to the impact of cold suns and the flaming up of nebulae in the darkened void; and through it all, unceasing and faint, like a silver shuttle, ran the frail, piping voice of man, a querulous chirp amid the screaming of planets and the crash of systems.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
Baldly as he had stated it, in his eyes was a rich vision of that hot, starry night at Salina Cruz, the white strip of beach, the lights of the sugar steamers in the harbor, the voices of the drunken sailors in the distance, the jostling stevedores, the flaming passion in the Mexican's face, the glint of the beast-eyes in the starlight, the sting of the steel in his neck, and the rush of blood, the crowd and the cries, the two bodies, his and the Mexican's, locked together, rolling over and over and tearing up the sand, and from away off somewhere the mellow tinkling of a guitar.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
Then it was all true. I saw the skins of tigers flaming in his palace on the Grand Canal; I saw him opening a chest of rubies to ease, with their crimson-lighted depths, the gnawings of his broken heart.
(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
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