Fiery means so hot with spice that it burns. A fiery curry, a fiery sauce, fiery chillies.
It also means burning or the colour of fire: a fiery sunset, fiery red hair. Of a temperament it means quick to anger and passionate: a fiery temper, a fiery speech — which is admiring as often as critical. Note the spelling, which drops the e of fire and then adds one back, and is among the more commonly misspelled words; and that fiery is pronounced with two syllables.
1adjectivefierySo hot with spice that it burns.
“This fiery salsa made my lips burn for ten minutes.”
2adjectivequickQuick to anger and passionate.
“She has a fiery temper and shouts when things go wrong.”
fiery is a quality of burning.
The word is fire plus -y, and the odd spelling comes from Middle English fyry, which reflected a pronunciation with the vowel already shifted. English kept the sound and lost the logic.
Middle English
fyry
English, today
fiery
Built from
From Middle English fyry, from fyr (“fire”), equivalent to fire + -y.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA