Inflame
Pronunciation
- Rhymes: -eɪm
Origin
From Middle English *enflammen, enflawmen, from Old French enflammer ("to inflame"), from Latin inflammÅ ("to kindle, set on fire", verb.), from in ("in, on") + flamma ("flame"), equivalent to - + flame.
Full definition of inflame
Verb
- To set on fire; to kindle; to cause to burn, flame, or glow.
- ChapmanWe should have made retreat
By light of the inflamed fleet. - (figuratively) To kindle or intensify, as passion or appetite; to excite to an excessive or unnatural action or heat.to inflame desire
- Miltonmore, it seems, inflamed with lust than rage
- DrydenBut, O inflame and fire our hearts.
- To provoke to anger or rage; to exasperate; to irritate; to incense; to enrage.
- ShakespeareIt will inflame you; it will make you mad.
- 1918, W. B. Maxwell, The Mirror and the Lamp Chapter 12, To Edward ... he was terrible, nerve-inflaming, poisonously asphyxiating. He sat rocking himself in the late Mr. Churchill's swing chair, smoking and twaddling.
- To put in a state of inflammation; to produce morbid heat, congestion, or swelling, of.to inflame the eyes by overwork
- To exaggerate; to enlarge upon.
- AddisonA friend exaggerates a man's virtues, an enemy inflames his crimes.
- 1773, Oliver Goldsmith, As you say, we passengers are to be taxed to pay all these fineries. I have often seen a good sideboard, or a marble chimney-piece, though not actually put in the bill, inflame a reckoning confoundedly.
- To grow morbidly hot, congested, or painful; to become angry or incensed.