fireworks

noun

Etymology: From fire + work(s). The similarity with Dutch vuurwerk and German Feuerwerk, both “fireworks”, is hardly coincidental. Since the word was apparently first attested in English circa 1575, probably from the Dutch (1540), from the German (sense early 16th c.), from Middle High German viurwerc (14th c. as “fuel, firewood”). A spread from the south northwards is also in line with the fact that the first European fireworks were produced in Italy in the late 14th century.

1. An event or a display where fireworks are set off.

   “5000 Marrons in Battery, which continue firing to the End of the Fireworks.”

   “By now, a great many people were walking towards the fireworks but their steps fell so softly and they chatted in such gentle voices there was no more noise than a warm, continual, murmurous humming, the cosy should of shared happiness, and the night filled with a muted, bourgeois yet authentic magic. Above our heads, the fireworks hung dissolving earrings on the night. Soon we lay down in a stubbled field to watch the fireworks.”

2. A boisterous or violent event or situation.

   “I left the room after John came home drunk but before the fireworks went off.”

   “Legal fireworks began yesterday in Benin at the pre-hearing of the petition by the People's Democratic Party, PDP, governorship candidate in the September 28, 2016 election in Edo State, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, challenging the declaration of Mr. Godwin Obaseki of All Progressives Congress, APC, by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, as winner of the election.”