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Fireball   /fˈaɪərbˌɔl/  /fˈaɪrbˌɔl/   Listen
noun
Fireball  n.  
1.
(Mil.) A ball filled with powder or other combustibles, intended to be thrown among enemies, and to injure by explosion; also, to set fire to their works and light them up, so that movements may be seen.
2.
A rare phenomenon often associated with or caused by lightning, resembling a luminous ball of fire passing rapidly through the air or along solid objects, then disappearing, and sometimes exploding. It seldom lasts more than a few seconds. Also called ball lightning, globe lightning, globular lightning, or kugelblitz.
3.
A large mass of fire caused by a large explosion, as of inflammable liquids or a nuclear device. The larger fireballs, as of nuclear explosions, rise seemingly intact into the air and may reach high altitudes while still glowing.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Fireball" Quotes from Famous Books



... the fireball. At last, when it reached the deck, to Ying-lo's surprise, something very, very strange happened. Before he had time to feel alarmed, the light vanished, and a funny little man stood in front of him peering anxiously into the ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman

... this was absolutely all they could do! Hardly three minutes had elapsed since Ardan had caught the first glimpse of it—three ages of agony! Now it was on them! In a second—in less than a second, the terrible fireball had burst like a shell! Thousands of glittering fragments were flying around them in all directions—but with no more noise than is made by so many light flakes of thistle-down floating about some warm afternoon in summer. The blinding, blasting steely white glare of the explosion almost ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... closer than 9,150 meters to ground zero at the time of the detonation. With the exception of a few men holding the ropes of barrage balloons or guiding cameras to follow the fireball as it ascended, all shelter personnel were in or behind the shelters. Some left the shelters after the initial flash to view the fireball. As a precautionary measure, they had been advised to lie on the ground before the blast wave arrived. ...
— Project Trinity 1945-1946 • Carl Maag and Steve Rohrer

... half a mile across, blended into one by the distance. An instant later, there was a blinding flash, like sheet-lightning, and a huge ball of varicolored fire belched upward, leaving a series of smoke-rings to float more slowly after it. The fireball flattened, then spread to form the mushroom-head of a column of incandescent gas that mounted to overtake it, engorging the smoke-rings as it rose, twisting, writhing, changing shape, turning to dark smoke ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper

... combustible. [solid fuels] coal, wallsend^, anthracite, culm^, coke, carbon, charcoal, bituminous coal, tar shale; turf, peat, firewood, bobbing, faggot, log; cinder &c (products of combustion) 384; ingle, tinder, touchwood; sulphur, brimstone; incense; port-fire; fire-barrel, fireball, brand; amadou^, bavin^; blind coal, glance coal; German tinder, pyrotechnic sponge, punk, smudge [U.S.]; solid fueled rocket. [fuels for candles and lamps] wax, paraffin wax, paraffin oil; lamp oil, whale oil. [liquid fuels] oil, petroleum, gasoline, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget



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