English Language & Usage Asked by Vincent Ramdhanie on May 22, 2021
What is the collective noun for fire?
A ____ of fires.
To clarify: This is actually a school curriculum text question and I have never heard of such a collective noun. This is an example I can think of:
Suppose that several fires raged yesterday in the city and the newspapers wanted to say “Yesterday the fire department fought a whole bunch of fires”. What word can replace “a whole bunch” in the previous statement?
I believe you are asking for a collective noun, and for fire there isn't one. You could have a "wall of fire" or "blaze of fire". What are you trying to achieve by using a collective noun here?
If there's something in particular you're trying to describe, consider a synonym: pyre, flame, conflagration and so on. Keep in mind that a construction like "pyre of fire" would be considered a pleonasm.
Based upon your edit, the nature of the question is totally different. In this case, why not go with several (your first inclination), series as Jim suggests, or any number of synonyms:
a handful of fires
a number of fires
many fires
separate fires
numerous fires
Correct answer by Zairja on May 22, 2021
Conversely, "fire" is frequently used as a mass noun, but "a fire" refers to a discrete entity. Interestingly, "fire" as a count noun does allow cumulative reference, since if two fires join in a forest, they are referred to as one fire.
That being said, there isn't a collective noun for fire.
Answered by Nora on May 22, 2021
The textbook you’re referring to might be looking for something like blaze, conflagration, holocaust, or inferno.
Nonetheless, those are all words for a significant fire, not for some collection of several fires.
You might, however, sneak by with pyroclasm, although that is related to volcanic activity and not quite right.
Answered by tchrist on May 22, 2021
For what it's worth, if there's an official word for a collection of fires, it isn't in this list.
That said, I seem to remember hearing the term rash of fires more than once. That phrase appears more than 400 times in published books, and a Google search for the exact term (in quotation marks) returns over 100,000 results, many of which are news articles.
Answered by J.R. on May 22, 2021
You could say "a sea of flames".
Answered by wondawong on May 22, 2021
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