Noun

(en noun)

A large fire extending to many objects, or over a large space; a general burning.

It took sixty firefighters to put out the conflagration .

(figuratively) A large-scale conflict.

* 1919 , :

This was well brought out in the skillfully conducted campaigns by the various governments in appealing to the masses with their characteristic suggestible subconsciousness, stirring to the very depths the reflex consciousness of gregarious man by all sorts of direct and indirect suggestions of fear of attacks and patriotic reactions of self-defence against such attacks until the evil genie of self-preservation and fear became loose, resulting in a sweeping conflagration of a war of nations with all the horror of diseases, mutilation, and extermination of millions of human lives, over seventeen and a half millions, according to latest accounts, having perished in this world-massacre of the human race.

Noun

(en noun)

A source of brightly burning light or intense heat used to attract attention in an emergency, to illuminate an area, or as a decoy.

* 2010 , James Fleming, Cold Blood

*:...when the soldiers openly laughed at him, I knew he was in the bag. While he was putting on the snowplough, the Whites shot up a flare to see what was happening.

*, chapter=7

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=The turmoil went on—no rest, no peace. […] It was nearly eleven o'clock now, and he strolled out again. In the little fair created by the costers' barrows the evening only seemed beginning; and the naphtha flares made one's eyes ache, the men's voices grated harshly, and the girls' faces saddened one.}}

A widening of an object with an otherwise roughly constant width.

* 2003 , Timothy Noakes, Lore of Running , page 270:

The flare on the inside of the shoe resists ankle pronation;

(aviation) The transition from downward flight to level flight just before landing.

(baseball) A low fly ball that is hit in the region between the infielders and the outfielders

A type of pyrotechnic that produces a brilliant light or intense heat without an explosion. A colored flare used as a warning on the railroad, a fusee.