Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
"FIREWORKS" is a plural of: firework. |
Date "FIREWORKS" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1590. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Dream Interpretation | To see fireworks, indicates enjoyment and good health. For a young woman, this dream signifies entertainments and pleasant visiting to distant places. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted .... |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Fireworks are explosive devices that burn with colored flames and sparks. Fireworks are used in pyrotechnic exhibitions and displays.CAUTION: USE Wikipedia AT YOUR OWN RISK
These devices are used in producing one or more loud bangs or striking displays of light, or a figure or figures in plain or colored fire, by the combustion of materials that burn in some peculiar manner, as gunpowder, sulfur, metallic filings, and various salts. The most common feature of fireworks is a paper or pasteboard tube filled with the combustible material. A number of these tubes or cases are often combined so as to make, when kindled, a great variety of sparkling shapes, often variously colored. The skyrocket is a common form of firework. The name is also given to various combustible preparations used in war.
Improper use of fireworks may be dangerous, both to the person operating them (risks of burns and wounds) and to bystanders; in addition, they may start a fire if landing on flammable material. For this reason, the use of fireworks is generally legally restricted. In some jurisdictions, their use is restricted to professionals; in some others, some smaller models can be used by the general public, while the others may only be operated by professionals. Also, in general, firing them near houses or in fire hazards areas is prohibited.
PaintingThe discovery of gunpowder and the invention of the first fireworks are traditionally credited to the Chinese, although India is also a likely source. Some scholars believe fireworks were developed in the Sui and Tang Dynasties (581-907 AD), but others believe there were no fireworks until the Northern Song Dynasty (Tenth Century AD). In the Han Dynasty (206-220 BC) firecrackers were made by roasting bamboo to produce the loud sound (known as "gung pow") that was intended to freighten evil spirits. In the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420-581 AD) the firecrackers were used not only used to dispel evil but also to pray for happiness and prosperity.
Since then, any event -- a birth, death, wedding, coronation, or New Year's celebration -- has become a fitting occasion for noisemakers.
The earliest settlers brought their enthusiasm for fireworks to this country. Firing of black powder was used to celebrate holidays. This fascination with the noise and color of fireworks continues today.
Musick for the Royal Fireworks, was composed by George Frideric Handel in 1749 to celebrate the peace of Aix-la-Chappelle, which had been declared the previous year.
Fireworks were associated with Independence Day celebrations a year after the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.
By the American Revolution, fireworks had long played a part in celebrating important events. It was natural that not only John Adams, but also many of his countrymen should think of fireworks when independence was declared. The very first celebrations of Independence Day were in 1777, six years before Americans knew whether the new nation would survive the war. Fireworks were a part of these festivities. In 1789, George Washington's inauguration was also accompanied by a fireworks display.
Fireworks have been with Americans since the nation's very beginnings. Let's continue to celebrate safely on this and every Independence Day.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Fireworks."
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Amusement | Bonfire, fireworks, feu-de-joie, firecracker. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: FIREWORKS |
| English words defined with "FIREWORKS": Fire master ♦ gunpowder ♦ Lycopodium powder ♦ Pin wheel, potassium chlorate, powder, punk, pyrotechnic, pyrotechnical, pyrotechnics, Pyrotechnist, pyrotechny ♦ Quick match ♦ red fire. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "FIREWORKS": BREVITY ♦ Communications Decency Act, CONFUCIUS ♦ FIREWORKS ASSEMBLER, FIREWORKS DISPLAY SPECIALIST, FIREWORKS MAKER, fireworks mode ♦ Green Man ♦ MAGAZINE KEEPER ♦ powder nipper, priller, pyrotechnic assembler ♦ setter-off, setter-up ♦ Voters Telecommunications Watch. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | James Bondjust in time for the fireworks. (Die Another Day; writing credit: Neal Purvis) I think my half whitelighter baby thought fireworks would be prettier than demon guts (Charmed; writing credit: Colman deKay) Bells ringing, fireworks, a dulcet choir of pretty little birdies (Buffy the Vampire Slayer; writing credit: Doreen Spicer) Hi it's cold in Japan, so were going to warm ourselves up with some fireworks. (Jackass: The Movie; writing credit: Jeff Tremaine; Spike Jonze) Are fireworks illegal in Mexico (South Park; writing credit: Rocco Siffredi) | |
Lyrics | Well I saw fireworks from the freeway (The Remedy (I Won't Worry); performing artist: JASON MRAZ) I'M THINKING ABOUT THE FIREWORKS (DON'T GET ME WRONG; performing artist: The Pretenders) The nights you filled with fireworks (Stuck In A Moment; performing artist: U2) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Fireworks (1947) Luke's Fireworks Fizzle (1916) Fireworks and the Janitor Love (1915) Indoor Fireworks (2003) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
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Music |
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High Tech |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Fireworks of Star Formation Light Up a Galaxy. Credit: NASA. |  | Resembling an aerial fireworks explosion, this dramatic Hubble telescope picture of the ... Credit: NASA. |
 | Fireworks over New York during Bicentennial celebration. Credit: Paths Less Taken - NOAA at the Ends of the Earth. |  | Fireworks silhouette the Color Guard of the United States Armed Forces. |
 | Steamship and fireworks at sea. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | "Ah, Independence Day - the glorious fourth! Do see that the natives get a nice fireworks display" / Herblock. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | World's Fair. Fireworks III. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Fireworks. Fireworks and Washington Mounument I. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Martin fireworks factory. Finishing room. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Pan-American Producing Co. fireworks factory. Loading of bomb shells with stars and high explosives. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
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| "Fireworks 8" by S Ji Commentary: "San Francisco 2002 New Year's Eve." | "Fun fireworks" by Red Bull Commentary: "Steamfair 8." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. | |
| Author | Quotation |
Montaigne | Life is full of fireworks; death, of love and courtesy. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Through the Looking-Glass | Carroll, Lewis | The candles all grew up to the ceiling, looking something like a bed of rushes with fireworks at the top. |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | Whoever has seen fireworks remembers that sheaf made by a crossing of flashes which is called the bouquet |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Economic History | Macau | Macau's economy is based largely on tourism, including gambling, and textile and fireworks manufacturing. (references) |
Political Economy | INDIA | Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of children are employed in the glass, pottery, carpet and fireworks industries, among others. (references) |
PERU | The following imports are banned: several insecticides, fireworks, used clothing, used shoes, used tires, radioactive waste, cars over five years old, and trucks over eight years old. (references) | |
Trade | Hong Kong | The import of munitions, firearms and fireworks is strictly forbidden. (references) |
Peru | Importation of some insecticides, fireworks, and toxic waste is also restricted. (references) | |
Barbados | Goods subject to bound duty rates can be found on the Customs Tariff (Amendment) Order, 2000 S.I. 2000 No. 29. Items such as fireworks, gaming machines and passenger vehicles still remain on the schedule. (references) | |
Worker Rights | Guatemala | Between 3,000 and 5,000 children were employed in the illegal cottage-based fireworks industry. (references) |
Guatemala | The ILO's International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor is active in the fireworks industry. (references) | |
China | Local residents credibly claimed that fireworks, assembled by pupils in the school, caused the explosion. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "FIREWORKS" is generally used as a noun (plural) -- approximately 95.28% of the time. "FIREWORKS" is used about 360 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (plural) | 95.28% | 343 | 15,445 |
| Noun (proper) | 4.72% | 17 | 85,106 |
| Total | 100.00% | 360 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "FIREWORKS": fireworks mode ♦ waste on fireworks. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Containing "FIREWORKS": follow-the-fireworks-code. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
fireworks.com phantom | 46 |
fireworks.com tnt | 20 |
black cat fireworks.com | 13 |
devil fireworks.com red | 4 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "FIREWORKS"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Arabic | الألعاب نارية, ألعاب نارية (squib). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | фойерверк (pinwheel, sparkler, wheel), блестящо остроумие. (various references) | |
Chinese | 煙火 (smoke and fire), 焰火 . (various references) | |
Czech | ohòostroj (pyrotechnics), ohňostroj. (various references) | |
Dutch | vuurwerk (firework). (various references) | |
Esperanto | fajraĵo. (various references) | |
Finnish | ilotulitus. (various references) | |
French | feu d'artifice, pièce d'artifice. (various references) | |
German | feuerwerk. (various references) | |
Greek | πυροτεχνήματα (fire works, pyrotechnics). (various references) | |
Hungarian | tûzijáték (pyrotechnics), sziporkázás (flying, scintillation, sparkle), hisztizés, hiszti, cirkuszolás, cirkusz (circus), cécó (do, gauds), arénázás. (various references) | |
Indonesian | kembang api (pyrotechnic). (various references) | |
Italian | fuochi d'artificio. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 花火 , 花火 . (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | はなび. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | ireworksfay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | fogos de artifício (firework). (various references) | |
Romanian | focuri de artificii, torent (drift, flood, fresh, gush, torrent), desfãşurare (course, development, display, evolution, March, operation, passage, process, progress, spread, unfolding), artificiu (artifice). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | vatromet. (various references) | |
Spanish | fuegos artificiales, pirotecnia (pyrotechnics, pyrotechny), petardo (banger, cracker, firecracker, maroon, petard, thunderflash). (various references) | |
Swedish | fyrverkeri (pyrotechnics, set piece). (various references) | |
Turkish | patlama (bang, blow out, blowup, boom, burst, burst up, crack, detonating, detonation, eruption, explosion, fulminating, fulmination, outburst, plosion, puncture, simmer), havai fişek gösterisi, çıngar. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Misspellings | |
"FIREWORKS" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: forework, foreworks. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "FIREWORKS" (pronounced fī"rwer'ks) |
| 4 | -w er' k s | artworks, masterworks, networks, patchworks, steelworks, waterworks. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "e-f-i-k-o-r-r-s-w" | |
-1 letter: firework, frowsier. | |
-2 letters: forkers, forkier, frisker, reworks, workers, worries. | |
-3 letters: firers, forker, friers, kefirs, rework, risker, rosier, rowers, wirers, worker, worser. | |
-4 letters: firer, fires, fores, forks, frier, fries, frise, frisk, froes, frore, frows, kefir, keirs, kerfs, kiefs, kiers, orris, osier, reifs, resow, rifer, riser, rower, serif, serow, siker, skier, skirr, sorer, sower, swore, weirs. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Images: Digital Art 8. Quotations: Familiar | 9. Quotations: Fiction 10. Quotations: Non-fiction 11. Usage Frequency 12. Expressions | 13. Expressions: Internet 14. Translations: Modern 15. Derivations 16. Rhymes | 17. Anagrams 18. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
