Other forms: blazes
A blaze is a large bright fire. Fight the blaze, a blaze broke out, a blaze of light.
It is the standard newspaper word for a fire, chosen because it is short enough for a headline. A blaze of publicity or of glory uses the brightness rather than the burning. A blaze is also the white mark down a horse's face, and a mark cut on a tree to show a trail.
1nounblazeA large bright fire.
“Firefighters worked through the night to put out the blaze at the factory.”
blaze is a fire.
Old English blaese meant a torch or flame, from a Germanic root meaning to shine. The trail-marking sense is related.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰel- (shiny)
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰel- — to shine, be white
Proto-Germanic
*blasǭ — torch
Proto-West Germanic
*blasā
Old English
blæse
Middle English
blase
English, today
blaze
Built from
From Middle English blase, from Old English blæse, blase (“firebrand, torch, lamp, flame”), from Proto-West Germanic blasā, from Proto-Germanic blasǭ (“torch”), from Proto-Indo-European bʰel- (“to shine, be white”). Cognate with Low German blas (“burning candle, torch, fire”), Middle High German blas (“candle, torch, flame”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA