pyre
a pile or heap of wood or other combustible material.
such a pile for burning a dead body, especially as part of a funeral rite, as in India.
Origin of pyre
1Words that may be confused with pyre
Words Nearby pyre
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use pyre in a sentence
Crematoriums had to build makeshift pyres to keep up with the demand, and there were reports that the outpouring of ash drifted so far it stained clothes a kilometer away.
What went so wrong with covid in India? Everything. | Sonia Faleiro | July 5, 2021 | MIT Technology ReviewThen there are the pictures of front-line workers performing final rites — lighting pyres and lowering bodies into graves — of those they don’t even know.
Why the world must witness pictures of India’s mass Covid-19 cremations | Kamayani Sharma | May 21, 2021 | VoxThree months later, those expectations have evaporated in the fumes from smoldering funeral pyres that dot the country’s cities.
She also champions alternatives like natural burials, funeral pyres, and intimate ceremonies in the home.
The greatest library ever assembled by the great civilizations of the ancient world—containing a vast ocean of knowledge now lost to us forever—was incinerated on a great pyre of papyrus.
The Story of the Library of Alexandria Is Mostly a Legend, But the Lesson of Its Burning Is Still Crucial Today | Richard Ovenden | November 17, 2020 | Time
Thrown into the Middle East pyre, the Zionism-racism charge has been an accelerant, angering, alienating, polarizing both sides.
Delegitimizing Israel Makes Peace Harder to Achieve | Gil Troy | February 28, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTSpectators took photographs of the pyre on their mobile phones.
Daenerys built the funeral pyre for her husband, Khal Drogo, here and hatched three dragons after being abandoned by her khlassar.
The light was beginning to fade and a funeral pyre was still smoking eerily in front of the temple.
A cordon of soldiers, placed at a distance from the pyre, kept the inquisitive from drawing too near.
The Pilgrim's Shell or Fergan the Quarryman | Eugne SueFergan and his assistants withdrew to the mob which the file of soldiers was holding back from the pyre.
The Pilgrim's Shell or Fergan the Quarryman | Eugne SueThe pyre was then lighted with a torch by a relative, who kept his face averted during the act.
The Private Life of the Romans | Harold Whetstone JohnstonHe threw himself upon the pyre, and was consumed like a log of wood, together with the chamber.
Out of that funeral pyre her feverish thoughts builded a frightful dream.
The Adventures of Kathlyn | Harold MacGrath
British Dictionary definitions for pyre
/ (paɪə) /
a heap or pile of wood or other combustible material, esp one used for cremating a corpse
Origin of pyre
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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