a. Forms: 3 furie, -y, fuyre, -i, -y, 4–6 fyre, -ie, -y, 4–7 firie, -y(e, (5 fery), 6–7 fierie, (6 fyeri), 6–9 fir(e)y, 6– fiery. [f. FIRE sb. + -Y1. Cf. OFris. fiurech, Du. vurig, Da. fyrig, MHG. viurec, viuric (Ger. feurig).]
1. Consisting of or containing fire; flaming with fire. Fiery-drake, -dragon = FIRE-DRAKE.
c. 1275. The Passion of our Lord, 660, in O. E. Misc., 56.
| And heryeden vre louerd crist and heore bede sunge | |
| Þe holy gost heom com vp-on in fury tunge. |
c. 1290. S. Eng. Leg., I. 39/175. A fuyr Drake þar-opon: a-ȝein heom cominde huy seiȝe.
1393. Gower, Conf., II. 183.
| And for to wissen hem by night | |
| A firy piller hem alight. |
1526. Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 3 b. The holy goost appered on ye apostles in fyry tonges.
1611. Bible, Dan. iii. 23. These three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell downe bound into the midst of the burning fierie furnace.
a. 1800. Cowper, Heroism, 83.
| Oh place me in some heaven-protected isle, | |
| Where peace and equity and freedom smile, | |
| Where no volcano pours his fiery flood, | |
| No crested warrior dips his plume in blood. |
a. 1822. Shelley, Satire upon Sat., 34. Let scorn … rain on him like flakes of fiery snow.
1832. De la Beche, A Geological Manual (ed. 2), 113. The bottom was covered with lava, and the S.W. and northern parts of it were one vast flood of burning matter, in a state of terrific ebullition, rolling to and fro its ‘fiery surge’ and flaming billows.
fig. 1866. B. Taylor, The Palm and the Pine.
| The chastity of temperate blood, | |
| Impetuous passion’s fiery flood. |
b. Fire-bearing; esp. of an arrow, dart, etc. lit. and fig.
c. 1300. St. Brandan, 332.
| Tho ther com in a furi arewe at a fenestre anon, | |
| As he fram hevene come, and the tapres tende echon. |
c. 1386. Chaucer, Knt.’s T., 706.
| And ouer all this, to slen me utterly, | |
| Loue hath his firy dart so brenningly | |
| Ystiked thurgh my trewe careful hert, | |
| That shapen was my deth erst than my shert. |
c. 1500. Lancelot, 1227.
| In hire Remembrance loues fyre dart | |
| With hot desyre hir smat one to the hart. |
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., I. 446.
| And from the middle Darkness flashing out, | |
| By fits he deals his fiery Bolts about. |
1796. H. Hunter, trans. St. Pierre’s Studies of Nature (1799), I. 86. The Father of Day, with his fiery shafts, overturns the fantastic fabric.
a. 1822. Shelley, To Italy.
| As the sunrise to the night, | |
| As the north wind to the clouds, | |
| As the earthquake’s fiery flight, | |
| Ruining mountain solitudes, | |
| Everlasting Italy, | |
| Be those hopes and fears on thee. |
c. In biblical allusions: Attended with or performed by a display of fire.
1847. Emerson, Poems, The Problem, Wks. (Bohn), I. 401.
| Ever the fiery Pentecost | |
| Girds with one flame the countless host, | |
| Trances the heart through chanting choirs, | |
| And through the priest the mind inspires. |
1850. Hare, Mission Comf., 9. The firy baptism of the day of Pentecost consumed and purged away the dross and weakness of their nature; and they came out as silver refined and purified seven times by the fire.
1879. Farrar, St. Paul (1883), 233. The awful fiery Law [see Deut. xxxiii. 2] which he believed to have been delivered by God Himself from the shrouded summit of Sinai.
2. Depending on or performed by the agency of fire; in fiery trial with reference to the testing of metals; also, † of a metal, tested by fire. † Fiery weapons = FIRE-ARMS. Fiery wound; a wound inflicted by fire-arms.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., VIII. xxv. (1535), 127/1. He [Mars] dysposethe and makethe able to fyrye werkes and craftes.
1555. Philpot, in Strype, Eccl. Mem., III. App. xlviii. 156. I cownsel ye therfor to the fyeri Gold of the Deity of owre Christ.
1598. Barret, Theor. Warres, I. i. 2. The wars are much altered since the fierie weapons first came vp: the Cannon, the Musket, the Caliuer and Pistoll. Ibid., 3. Well wishing in my hart (had it bene Gods good will) that this infernall fierie engine had neuer bin found out.
1611. Bible, 1 Pet. iv. 12. Thinke it not strange concerning the fiery triall, which is to trie you, as though some strange thing happened vnto you.
1704. Pope, Windsor Forest, 111.
| See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs, | |
| And mounts exulting on triumphant wings: | |
| Short is his joy; he feels the fiery wound, | |
| Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground. |
1876. Freeman, Norm. Conq. V. xxiv. 395. The fiery trial which England went through was a fire which did not destroy, but only purified.
3. Having the appearance of fire; brightly glowing or flaming, of a blazing red.
14[?]. MS. Herald’s Office, in R. Glouc. (1724), 484 note. In whiche enetid appered in the West ii. sterres of fuyry colour.
1480. Caxton, Chron. Eng., ccxxxii. 252. Many sterres … fyl doun to the erth leuyng behynde hem fery bemes in maner of lightenyng.
1561. Burn. Paules Ch., A ij. On Wednesday … was seene a marueilous great fyrie lightning, and immediately insued a most terrible hydeous cracke of thunder, suche as seldom hath been heard.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., I. lxxv. 7.
| For all for prayse and honour he did fight. | |
| Both stricken strike, and beaten both do beat, | |
| That form their shields flyeth firie light, | |
| And helmets hewen deepe, shew marks of eithers might. |
1601. ? Marston, Pasquil & Katherine, I. 207.
| Came. Sir, you need not take the pepper in the nose, | |
| Your nose is firie enough. |
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1658), 6. The head, and back parts to the tail, are of a fiery colour.
1727. De Foe, A System of Magic, I. iv. (1840), 102. These fiery appearances are nothing but certain collections of matter exhaled by the influence of the sun from the earth, or perhaps from other solid bodies in the compass of the solar system, such as the planets and other bodies, which you in this earth know nothing of.
1791. Mrs. Radcliffe, The Romance of the Forest, xi. The sun … set with uncommon splendor, and threw a fiery gleam athwart the woods, and upon some scattered fragments of the ruins; which she could not gaze upon with indifference.
1878. Morley, Crit. Misc., Carlyle, 163. Excess on the other side leads people into emotional transports, in which the pre-eminent respect that is due to truth, the difficulty of discovering the truth, the narrowness of the way that leads thereto, the merits of intellectual precision and definiteness, and even the merits of moral precision and definiteness, are all effectually veiled by purple or fiery clouds of anger, sympathy, and sentimentalism, which imagination has hung over the intelligence.
b. absol. or quasi-sb. rare.
1847. L. Hunt, Men, Women, & B., I. xiv. 238–9. Theocritus has not given two of his beautiful swains hair amounting to a positive fiery.
c. Of eyes (with mixture of sense 5): Flashing, glowing, ardent.
1568. Grafton, Chron. (1812), II. 192. The king … was amiable of countenaunce, hauing black eyes, which when he waxed angry, would seeme to be fyrie.
1601. Shaks., Jul. C., I. ii. 186.
| Cicero | |
| Lookes with such Ferret, and such fiery eyes | |
| As we haue seene him in the Capitoll | |
| Being crost in Conference, by some Senators. |
1819. Shelley, Cyclops, 463.
| So will I in the Cyclops’ fiery eye | |
| Turn round the brand, and dry the pupil up. |
1841. W. Spalding, Italy & It. Isl., I. 32. The dark fiery eye and marked features of the Neapolitan fisherman.
4. Hot as fire; blazing, burning, red hot. † Fiery-triplicity: see quot. 1730.
c. 1290. S. Eng. Leg., I. 105/145.
| Þ nomen huy pich and brumston and welden it wel faste | |
| And ope hire nakede tendre bodi al-fuyri it casten. |
1297. R. Glouc. (Rolls), 6866. Þat heo wolde þoru fury yre.
1535. Stewart, Cron. Scot., II. 461. Ony spark out of ane fyrie brand.
1597. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. § 54. 115. The sword which is made fierie doth not only cut by reason of the sharpnes which simplie it hath, but also burne by means of that heate which it hath from fire.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., I. 157.
| Then when the fiery Suns too fiercely play, | |
| And shrivell’d Herbs on with’ring Stems decay. |
1726. trans. Gregory’s Astron., I. Pref. 5. That the Sun and Stars were fiery or red-hot Stones and Golden Clods.
1730–6. Bailey (folio), Fiery triplicity, are those signs of the zodiack which surpass the rest in fiery qualities, as Leo, Aries, and Sagittarius.
1744. Berkeley, Siris, § 186. In a vision of Daniel the throne of God appeared like a fiery flame, and his wheel like burning fire.
1836. Macgillivray, trans. Humboldt’s Trav., xx. 291. As they advanced the sky became clearer, the soil more dusty, and the atmosphere more fiery.
fig. a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter, cxviii. 140. Þe worde þat is fyry thorgh þe haly gast.
1593. Shaks., 3 Hen. VI., I. iv. 87.
| What, hath thy fierie heart so parcht thine entrayles, | |
| That not a Teare can fall for Rutlands death? |
b. Of a tumour, etc.: Burning, inflamed. Fiery face: one affected by erysipelas.
1600. Surflet, Countrie Farme, II. xliv. 291. Of these two ointments, the first is better for wounds onely cancrous vlcers, ringwormes, skurfs, and firy faces.
1740. J. S., Le Dran’s Observ. Surg. Dict., Antrax, a red fiery Tumour, such as appears in the Plague.
1784. Cowper, Task, II. 183.
| Bids a plague | |
| Kindle a fiery pile upon the skin. |
c. Acting like fire; productive of a burning sensation or inflammation.
1535. Coverdale, Isa. xiv. 29. For out of ye serpentes rote, there shal waxe a kockatrice, & the frute shalbe a fyrie worme.
1577. Northbrooke, Dicing (1843), 5. This is that fyrie serpent, that as many as looke vpon him should liue.
1611. Bible, Num. xxi. 6. And the LORD sent fierie serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and much people of Israel died.
1821. Shelley, Hellas, 551.
| The lust of blood, | |
| Which made our warriors drunk, is quenched in death; | |
| But kike a fiery plague breaks out anew | |
| In deeds which make the Christian cause look pale | |
| In its own light. |
1855. Bain, The Senses and the Intellect, II. Ii. § 15. The fiery taste of alcoholic liquors, camphors, and volatile oils, given in Gmelin’s classification, seems to me to be happily designated.
5. Of persons, their actions and attributes:
a. Ardent, eager, fierce, spirited.
c. 1385. Chaucer, L. G. W., 2292, Philomene.
| He caste his fery herte vp-on hyre so | |
| That he wil haue hir how so euere he do. |
1393. Gower, Conf., III. 237.
| Sardanapallus … Was through the slouth of his corage | |
| Fall into thilke firy rage | |
| Of love. |
1529. More, A Dialoge of Comfort against Tribulacion, III. Wks. 1219/1. By the fyry affeccion that we beare to our own filthy fleshe, maketh vs so dull in the desier of heauen.
1594. Shaks., Rich. III., IV. iii. 54.
| Then fierie expedition be my wing, | |
| Ioues Mercury, and Herald for a King. |
1650. Hubbert, A Pill to Purge Formality, 24. Who at one time were very fiery and zealous for the maintenance of Episcopacy, and were esteemed learned Preachers and much followed!
1681. Dryden, Abs. & Achit., 156.
| A fiery Soul, which working out its way, | |
| Fretted the Pigmy-Body to decay. |
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., II. 459. Mordaunt, exulting in the prospect of adventures irresistibly attractive to his fiery nature, was among the foremost volunteers.
1867. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), I. v. 290. Such fiery zeal at least implies the firmest belief in the dogmas which are thus to be forced upon all men at all hazards.
b. Fiercely irritable; easily moved to violent anger.
1590. Shaks., Com. Err., IV. iv. 53. Luc. Alas how fiery, and how sharpe he lookes.
1640. in Hamilton Papers (Camden), App. 259. His speeches, did so fascinate the old fiery little man.
1710. Tatler, No. 231, 30 Sept., ¶ 2. Give her such a terrible Apprehension of his fiery Spirit, that she should never dream of giving way to her own.
1752. Young, Brothers, I. i. Rome calls me fiery: Let her find me so!
1806. T. S. Surr, Winter in Lond. (ed. 3), II. 273. I thought the signor and this fiery Montagu exchanged some fierce looks at each other. Is it a duel, doctor?
1852. Miss Yonge, Cameos, II. xv. 163. Charles, in his fiery petulance, declared that he would go, if no one followed him; but he was only laughed at by his uncles, and was forced to yield, and to disperse his army.
c. Of a horse: Mettlesome, spirited.
1593. Shaks., Rich. II., V. ii. 8.
| The Duke, great Bullingbrooke, | |
| Mounted vpon a hot and fierie Steed. |
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., III. 130.
| The fiery Courser, when he hears from far | |
| The sprightly Trumpets, and the Shouts of War, | |
| Pricks up his Ears; and trembling with Delight, | |
| Shifts Place, and paws, and hopes the promis’d Fight. |
1827. Lytton, Pelham, x. I always valued myself particularly upon my riding, and my horse was both the most fiery and the most beautiful in Paris.
6. Of a vapour, esp. gas in a mine: Liable to take fire, highly inflammable. Hence of a mine, etc.: Containing inflammable gas, liable to explosions from firedamp.
1751. R. Pococke, Trav. Eng. (1888), I. 206. They are much troubled with what they call fiery air…. When it is very bad they let down a candle by a rope to set fire to the fiery damp, as they call it. Ibid., 207. The burning well at Ancliff, near Wigan, seems to have been nothing but the vapours or fiery damp that come out of the spring.
1851. Greenwell, Coal-trade Terms of Northumberland and Durham, 27. A furnace of the width of 10 feet … will … be sufficient for any mine, however fiery.
1868. Daily News, 30 Nov. The seam of coal was known to be … a fiery one. Ibid. (1887), 30 May, 5/3. Both pits are situated in what the miners … call a ‘fiery’ district.
7. attrib. and Comb. a. adverbial, as fiery-bright, -fierce, -flaming, -hot, -kindled, -liquid, -rash, -seeming, -shining, -red, -short, -sparkling, -twinkling. b. parasynthetic, as fiery-faced, -footed, -helmed, -hoofed, -mouthed, -pointed, -spangled, -spirited, -sworded, -tressed, -visaged, -wheeled, -winged. Also, fiery-new, † (a) = BRAND-NEW obs. (cf. fire-new); (b) of wine, not yet mellowed; fiery-puissant, transl. of L. ignipotens, working powerfully with fire.
1531. Elyot, The Boke Named the Gouernour, II. vi.
| The blode becometh wanne, the eien *firy bright | |
| Lyke Gorgon the monster, appering in the night. |
1594. Spenser, Amoretti, xvi.
| I mote perceiue how in her glancing sight, | |
| legions of loues with little wings did fly: | |
| darting their deadly arrowes fyry bright, | |
| at euery rash beholder passing by. |
1588. Fraunce, Lawiers Log., Ded. I see on the sodayne this extrauagant discourse abruptly cut off by the importunate exclamations of a raging and fireyfaced Aristotelean; who seeing Ramus his Logike in some estimation, maketh small accoumpt of his owne credite in vttering such impatient speaches.
1819. Shelley, Cyclops, 483.
| Come! who is first, that with his hand | |
| Will urge down the burning brand | |
| Through the lids, and quench and pierce | |
| The Cyclops’ eye so *fiery fierce? |
1598. Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. ii., Columnes, 468.
| Close by him, David in his valiant fist | |
| Holds a fierce Lyon’s *fiery flaming Crest. |
1590. Spenser, F. Q., I. xii. 2.
| Scarcely had Phœbus in the glooming East | |
| Yet harnessed his *firie-footed teeme. |
1592. Shaks., Rom. & Jul., III. ii. 1. Jul. Gallop apace, you fiery footed steedes.
1748. Thomson, Cast. Indol., II. xxxii.
| His page then straight | |
| He to him call’d, a fiery-footed boy, | |
| Benempt Dispatch. |
1715–20. Pope, Iliad, XX. 52.
| In aid of Troy, Latona, Phœbus came, | |
| Mars *fiery-helm’d, the Laughter-loving Dame. |
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., i. 3.
| Vnto the big-swolne waues in the Iberian streame, | |
| Where Titan still vnyokes his *fiery-hoofed Teame. |
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XI. xiii. (1495), 398. Whan *firy hole yren is quenchyd in water.
14[?]. Hoccleve, Compl. Virgin, 221. Now thow art frosty cold now *fyry hoot.
1850. Tennyson, In Mem., cxiv.
| But some wild Pallas from the brain | |
| Of Demons? fiery-hot to burst | |
| All barriers in her onward race | |
| For power. |
1595. Shaks., John, II. i. 358.
| Cry hauocke kings, backe to the stained field | |
| You equall Potents, *fierie kindled spirits, | |
| Then let confusion of one part confirm | |
| The others peace: till then, blowes, blood, and death. |
1655. H. Vaughan, Silex Scint., I., Midnight (1858), 54.
| Thy heav’ns—some say— | |
| Are a *firie-liquid light, | |
| Which mingling aye | |
| Streames, and flames thus to the sight. |
1596. Spenser, F. Q., V. viii. 40.
| As when the *firie-mouthed steeds, which drew | |
| The Sunnes bright wayne to Phaetons decay. |
1644. E. Fisher, Feast of Feasts, 2. Take a tast of their new, *fiery-new Divinity.
1842. Tennyson, Will Waterproof’s Lyrical Monologue, 98.
| Whether the vintage, yet unkept, | |
| Had relish, fiery-new, | |
| Or elbow-deep in sawdust, slept, | |
| As old as Waterloo. |
1593. Shaks., Lucr., 373.
| Looke as the faire and *fierie pointed Sunne, | |
| Rushing from forth a cloud, bereaves our sight. |
1573. Twyne, Æneid, x. E e j. Take that shield which … The *fyrypuissant god unvict gaue thee.
1631. J. Weever, Ancient Funerall Monuments, 212. Which *fierie-rash temper of his, together with the losse of the Battell, and the place of his buriall.
1593. Shaks., Rich. II., II. iii. 58.
| North. Here come the Lords of Rosse and Willoughby, | |
| Bloody with spurring, *fierie red with haste. |
1846. G. E. Day, trans. Simon’s Anim. Chem., II. 228. The urine was usually of a fiery-red colour, sometimes neutral, and often alkaline.
1628. F. Fletcher, Drake’s Voy. (Hakl. Soc.), 149. Among these trees, night by night did shew themselues an infinite swarme of *fierie-seeming wormes flying in the aire, whose bodies (no bigger then an ordinary flie) did make a shew, and giue such light as if euery twigge on euery tree had beene a lighted candle: or as if that place had beene the starry spheare.
1594[?]. Greene, Selimus Wks. XIV. 288.
| Or Mars arm’d in his adamantine coate, | |
| Mounted vpon his *firie-shining waine. |
1847. Tennyson, The Princess, V. 297. *Fiery-short was Cyril’s counter-scoff.
1586. Marlowe, 1st Pt. Tamburl., V. ii.
| That which hath stopt the tempest of the Gods, | |
| Euen from the *fiery spangled vaile of heaven. |
1596. Fitz-Geffray, Sir F. Drake (1881), 63.
| The *fierie-sparkling precious Chrysolite, | |
| Spangled with gold, doth most transplendent shine: | |
| The pearle grac’d by the ring, the ring by it, | |
| The one the others bewtie doth refine. |
1652. J. Wricht, trans. Camus’ Nature’s Paradox, 266. The *fiery-spirited Beast … carried Liante towards the besieger’s Trenches.
1821. Byron, Cain, I. i.
| I see | |
| The gates of what they call their Paradise | |
| Guarded by *fiery-sworded cherubim, | |
| Which shut them out, and me. |
1745–6. Collins, Ode to Liberty, 97.
| Whether the *fiery-tressed Dane, | |
| Or Roman’s self o’erturn’d the fane. |
a. 1649. Drumm. of Hawth., Poems, Wks. (1711), 15.
| ’Mong sounding Trumpets, *fiery twinkling Gleams | |
| Of warm Vermilion Swords, and Cannons roar, | |
| Balls thick as Rain pour’d on the Caspian Shore. |
1813. Shelley, Q. Mab, VII. 87.
| The *fiery-visaged firmament expressed | |
| Abhorrence, and the grave of Nature yawned. |
1632. Milton, Penseroso, 51.
| Guiding the *fiery-wheeléd throne, | |
| The Cherub Contemplation. |
1757. Dyer, Fleece, IV. 211.
| Where *fiery-winged winds, | |
| And sandy desarts rous’d by sudden storms, | |
| All search forbid. |
c. In the names of birds and animals: fiery-brandtail, the redstart (Ruticilla phœnicurus); fiery-flare, -flaw = fire-flaire, the sting-ray; fiery-tangs, dial. (see quot.); fiery-topaz, a species of humming bird.
1813. J. Headrick, Agric. Surv. Forfars., App. 55. Both these species [crab and lobster] are called in Angusshire … Firy-tangs.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Fiery-flaw or fire-flaire, a northern designation of the sting-ray (Raia pastinaca).
1868. Wood, Homes without H., xxix. 554. The oddly shaped nest … is made by the Fiery Topaz (Topaza pyra).
1879. Miss Jackson, Shropsh. Word-bk., Fiery-bran’-tail, the Redstart.
