wildfire

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English wilde fire,^[2] inherited from Old English wildfȳr,^[3][4] a compound from English wild + fire.^[5][4][6][2] Chaucer wrote it wilde fyr.^[7] The OED compares German Wildfeuer, which means lightning, will-o'-the-wisp or erysipelas.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Furious or destructive fire, a conflagration, in the earliest quotations apparently one caused by lightning: in the Laud manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in the annal for 1032.^[5] Etymonline glosses the late Old English word as "destructive fire, raging conflagration", perhaps first one caused by lightning, and also as "erysipelas, a spreading skin disease", a sense the OED also records in Old English.^[4][5] Merriam-Webster dates the first sense to the 12th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

From about 1300 the word named Greek fire, a mixture of highly flammable substances used in war and very hard to put out;^[4][5] the OED's first record is in Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle (1297).^[5] It could also mean fire rained down from the sky as divine punishment.^[4] Chaucer used wilde fyr both for fire that is hard to quench and for a disease.^[7] Figurative uses, for a destructive force or for violent, fervid feeling, are recorded from before 1400, in the Cursor Mundi,^[5][4] and the word served in curses from before 1375 to 1709.^[5] Since wild could mean "natural, not made by people" or "out of doors", other fires got the name too: the will-o'-the-wisp (1663), volcanic fire and firedamp in coal mines (from 1672), and lightning without audible thunder (before 1831, chiefly Scottish).^[5][6] The phrase like wildfire, very fast and forcefully, is recorded from 1699, in Dampier's Voyages,^[5] and now usually goes with spread.^[6][2] Johnson (1755) defined it only as an easily lit composition that is hard to extinguish, quoting Shakespeare's "a ball of wildfire".^[8] A bacterial leaf-spot disease of tobacco has been called wildfire since 1918.^[5][6] The OED marks the general sense "destructive fire" as obsolete after 1634,^[5] but current dictionaries define a wildfire again as a raging, uncontrollable fire.^[6][2][9]

Timeline

• 1100s – a destructive fire, a conflagration; also the skin disease erysipelas.^[5][4][2]
• 1297 – Greek fire, a flammable mixture used in war.^[5]
• before 1375 – in curses (obsolete by 1709).^[5]
• before 1400 – figurative, a destructive force or violent feeling.^[5][4]
• c. 1405 – the flames of burning spirits on a dish, in Chaucer's Parson's Tale (obsolete).^[5]
• 1663 – will-o'-the-wisp.^[5]
• 1672 – volcanic fire; firedamp in coal mines.^[5]
• 1699 – like wildfire, very swiftly.^[5]
• before 1831 – lightning, especially sheet lightning without audible thunder.^[5]
• 1918 – a bacterial leaf-spot disease of tobacco.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large, raging fire that spreads fast and is hard to control: Strong winds drove the wildfire over the ridge.^[9][2][6]
2. spread like wildfire: to spread or become known very quickly: The news spread like wildfire through the village.^[6][9][5]
3. (historical) Greek fire or a similar highly flammable mixture used in war.^[6][9][2]
4. Lightning without audible thunder; heat lightning.^[9][2][5]
5. A will-o'-the-wisp.^[9][2][5]
6. A bacterial disease of tobacco that causes brown spots on the leaves.^[2][6][5]
7. (rare) Any of several spreading inflammatory skin diseases, especially erysipelas.^[6][5]

Related words

• wild
• fire

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Skeat, W. W., ed. (1894), The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, vol. VI: Glossarial Index, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins