fireball

English
Nuclear fireball - definitions 1 or 2

Etymology

fire +‎ ball

Noun

fireball (plural fireballs)

  1. A ball of fire, especially one associated with an explosion.
  2. (astronomy) A meteor bright enough to cast shadows.
    • 2003, Trevor Palmer, ‎Paul D. Taylor, ‎Robert N. Brandon, Perilous Planet Earth: Catastrophes and Catastrophism Through the Ages, →ISBN:
      In January 1999, a fireball exploded over Alaska.
    • 2005, Surendra Verma, The Mystery of the Tunguska Fireball, →ISBN, page 234:
      Moments later a second satellite records a fireball exploding in the clouded sky.
  3. A class of sailing dinghy with a single trapeze and a symmetrical spinnaker, sailed by a crew of two.
  4. (heraldry) A charge made of a disc-shaped bomb shell, with four sets of flames, at the top, bottom and on either side.
  5. (historical) A ball filled with combustibles to be thrown among enemies.

Derived terms

Translations
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Translations to be checked

Verb

fireball (third-person singular simple present fireballs, present participle fireballing, simple past and past participle fireballed)

  1. (intransitive) To explode in a ball of flame.
    The car swerved off a road, hit a wall, and fireballed as the petrol tank exploded.
  2. (baseball) To pitch the ball very fast.
  3. (transitive, fantasy) To attack with balls of fire.

See also
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