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Firework   Listen
noun
firework  n.  
1.
A device for producing a striking display of light, or a figure or figures in plain or colored fire, by the combustion of materials that burn in some peculiar manner, as gunpowder, sulphur, metallic filings, and various salts; also called a pyrotechnic device. The most common feature of fireworks is a paper or pasteboard tube filled with the combustible material. A number of these tubes or cases are often combined so as to make, when kindled, a great variety of figures in fire, often variously colored. The skyrocket is a common form of firework. The art of designing fireworks for purposes of entertainment is called pyrotechnics. The name firework is also given to various combustible preparations used in war.
2.
pl. A pyrotechnic exhibition; an entertainment consisting of the discharge of fireworks (1). (Obs. in the sing.) "Night before last, the Duke of Richmond gave a firework."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Firework" Quotes from Famous Books



... apprenticed my son to a grocer, and the first thing he sold was S. S." (Soft Soap). Another, "I apprenticed my son to a gardener, and the first thing he grew was a C. B." (Canterbury Bell). Another, "I apprenticed my son to a firework manufacturer, and the first thing he made was a G. R." ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... The spectators manifested fatigue; instantly the play reappeared in four acts, Beaumarchais having lost no time in removing the fifth wheel from his carriage. It delighted the public by the novelty of its abounding gaiety, a gaiety full and free, yet pointed with wit, a revolving firework scattering its dazzling spray. The old comic theme of the amorous tutor, the charming pupil, the rival lover, adorned with the prestige of youth, the intriguing attendant, was renewed by a dialogue which ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... 1819. Madame Blanchard ascended in a balloon of small size, to save the expense of filling; she was therefore obliged to inflate it entirely, and the gas escaped by the lower orifice, leaving on its route a train of hydrogen. She carried, suspended above her car, by an iron wire, a kind of firework, forming an aureola, which she was to kindle. She had often repeated this experiment. On this occasion she carried, besides, a little parachute, ballasted by a firework terminating in a ball with silver rain. Site was to launch this apparatus, after having lighted it with a lance a feu, ...
— A Voyage in a Balloon (1852) • Jules Verne

... pleasing her, but because she had aroused such a strain of thought in his own mind. There was a certain class of brilliant sayings of his, of a cleverly irreligious and sceptical nature, at which Rose never laughed: when this sort of firework was let off in her presence, she opened her eyes upon him, wide and blue, with a calm surprise intermixed with pity, but said nothing; and, after trying the experiment several times, he gradually felt this silent kind of ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... ascertaining their share in the peculation, which they hid in a bow-pot for security. Now, when an assembly of divines, aided by the most strict religious characters in the neighbourhood of Woodstock, were assembled to conjure down the supposed demon, Trusty Joe had contrived a firework, which he let off in the midst of the exorcism, and which destroyed the bow-pot; and, to the shame and confusion of the Commissioners, threw their secret indenture into the midst of the assembled ghost-seers, who became thus acquainted with their ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... on Shakespeare, though exaggerated for the fun of the thing, was not by any means the mere folly or firework paradox that has been supposed. He meant what he said; what was called his levity was merely the laughter of a man who enjoyed saying what he meant—an occupation which is indeed one of the greatest larks in life. Moreover, it can honestly be said that Shaw did good by shaking ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... or liking. But it does seem sorter poor play that a man should be plumb center of the biggest war in history an' never see a single solitary corpse. An' that's me. I been trailin' around with this convoy for months, and never got near enough to a shell burst to tell it from a kid's firework. It ain't in the program of this trench warfare to have motor transport under fire, and the program is bein' strictly attended to. It's some sight too, they tell me, when a good mix-up is goin' on up front. I've got a camera here ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)

... said, with a peculiar intonation. "Oh! if you only knew how I longed to meet the right men. Uncle is a convert—no, hardly a backslider; but he swears by the regenerating process instead of violence. Formerly the cleverest living chemist, he now—oh! I shame to say it—he now indulges in firework displays instead of manufacturing bombs with which to execute tyrants." She slowly dropped his hand and her eyes wore a clairvoyant ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... I made quite a firework of the Aged's sausage, and greatly discomposed both my own attention and Wemmick's; ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... he was and I'll tell you. He was the brilliant youngster, the coruscating firework, the—the Banneker of ten years ago. Come into the den and ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... exactly on the social and even scientific side that he has a right to criticise. If he were a Chinese peasant, for instance, and came from a land of fireworks, he would naturally suppose that he had happened to arrive at a great firework display in celebration of something; perhaps the Sacred Emperor's birthday, or rather birthnight. It would gradually dawn on the Chinese philosopher that the Emperor could hardly be born every night. And when he learnt the truth the philosopher, if he was ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton

... the news of this defeat, the two Doctors Bond came to me with a subscription paper for raising money to defray the expense of a grand firework, which it was intended to exhibit at a rejoicing on receipt of the news of our taking Fort Duquesne. I looked grave, and said it would, I thought, be time enough to prepare for the rejoicing when we knew we should have occasion to rejoice. ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... smoke apparatus consisted of an arrangement for burning phosphorus at the stern of a ship; in other cases firework composition and other chemicals were used. A dense smoke cloud was thus formed, and, with the wind in a suitable direction, a vessel could hide her movements from an enemy submarine or other vessel, and thus screen herself ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe

... atmosphere of unalloyed merriment which pervades when tables are spread under the trees for the alfresco supper is distinctly exhilarating. These gardens have amusements for the frivolous also, such as switchbacks, pantomimes of the "Punch and Judy" kind, and frequently firework displays, which last ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson

... speaking the truth the excitement was awful. Fortunately, as Mrs. Prendergast remarked, there was no ladies in the boat, but there was several men passengers. We were doing a good thirteen knots an hour, but we brought up at once, an' then we 'ad the most lovely firework display I ever see aboard ship in my life. Blue lights and rockets and guns going all night, while we cruised slowly about, and the passengers sat on deck arguing as to whether the skipper would be hung or ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs

... the walls, and Catherine-wheels fixed on them; Roman candles placed upon the tables instead of mutton-dips, and the upper parts of the school windows let down for the free egress of our flights of sky-rockets. The first volley of the last-mentioned beautiful firework went through the windows, amidst our huzzas, at an angle of about sixty-five degrees, and did their duty nobly; when—when—of course, the reader will think that the room was on fire. Alas! it was quite the reverse. A noble Catherine-wheel had just ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard



Words linked to "Firework" :   low explosive, catherine wheel, pyrotechnic, fizgig, firecracker, cracker, squib, sparkler, plural form



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