单词 | death fire |
释义 | death firen. 1. A mysterious light supposed to be seen floating or flickering in the air around a corpse, in a graveyard, etc.; a phosphorescent light emitted by decaying organic matter; (also) a luminous electrical discharge on a ship, etc., during a storm, St. Elmo's fire. Cf. death candle n., death-flame n. at death n. Compounds 2, death light n. 1. ΘΚΠ the world > the supernatural > supernatural being > ghost or phantom > [noun] > light appearing over corpse death fire1765 death-flame1806 death light1823 1765 tr. I. Somis Hist. Narr. Bergemoletto 114 Wandering wild-fires..are a sure presage of death to the persons constantly attended by them..and they accordingly call them death-fires. 1796 S. T. Coleridge Ode Departing Year 8 Mighty Army of the Dead, Dance, like Death-fires, round her Tomb! 1817 P. B. Shelley Laon & Cythna xi. xii. 243 From the choked well, whence a bright death-fire sprung. 1898 T. A. Janvier In Sargasso Sea xxvii. 199 As that honest light got stronger the death-fires on the old galleon and on the wrecks around her paled quickly. 1908 H. J. Smith in Atlantic Monthly Sept. 393/2 Some people have seen death-fires too, and a headless creature, much like a horse, galloping through the darkness. 1986 B. Lumley Ship of Dreams (1994) xv. 128 Now, because the death-fires were a little brighter here, the adventurers could see that indeed they had entered a great bay... The bed of the bay was littered with vast boulders and rocks, all of them dully aglow with that strange foxfire. 2. A fire for burning a person to death. ΘΚΠ society > authority > punishment > capital punishment > [noun] > burning > fire death fire1810 1810 T. L. Peacock Genius of Thames i. 37 They saw the foe advancing near, The death-fires blazing high. 1857 T. Flanagan Hist. R.C. Ch. Eng. II. 81 A large wooden statue of the blessed Virgin was brought..to make the death-fire. 1918 Crisis Apr. 270/2 The captors..prepared the death fire. 1991 L. Siegel Net of Magic 16 Amidst prayers and lamentations, skulls were broken and death-fires blazed. This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2014; most recently modified version published online March 2022). < n.1765 |
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