inflammable

From Middle French inflammable, from Medieval Latin īnflammābilis, from Latin īnflammāre (“to set on fire”), from in (“in, on”) + flamma (“flame”). Equivalent to inflame +‎ -able.

• enPR: ĭnʹflăm-ə-bəl, IPA^(key): /ɪnˈflæməbəl/

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inflammable (comparative more inflammable, superlative most inflammable)

1. Capable of burning; easily set on fire.

   Synonyms: combustible, flammable

   Antonyms: fireproof, incombustible, nonflammable, noninflammable, unflammable, uninflammable

   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, OCLC 1167497017:

     On he went a few paces and touched a second, then a third, and a fourth, till at last we were surrounded on all three sides by a great ring of bodies flaring furiously, the material with which they were preserved having rendered them so inflammable that the flames would literally spout out of the ears and mouth in tongues of fire a foot or more in length.

2. (figuratively) Easily excited; set off by the slightest excuse; easily enraged or inflamed.

   Synonyms: hot-headed, quick to anger

   Antonyms: level-headed, unflappable

3. (nonstandard) Incapable of burning; not easily set on fire.

   Synonyms: fireproof, incombustible, nonflammable, noninflammable, unflammable, uninflammable

   Antonyms: combustible, flammable

• Inflammable, although used for centuries synonymously with the more recent back-formation flammable, nowadays also has significant nonstandard use as an antonym of flammable, and as such, may be taken to have the opposite meaning to that intended (depending on whether the writer and/or the reader use inflammable as a synonym, or as an antonym, of flammable). Where such confusion might arise, especially where this may be a safety hazard, one may prefer to use flammable or non-flammable (depending on whether inflammable would have been used as a synonym or as an antonym of flammable) or another synonym.

inflammable (plural inflammables)

1. Any inflammable substance.

• inflammable in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• inflammable in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911

From Middle French inflammer +‎ -able, from Latin īnflammābilis.

• IPA^(key): /ɛ̃.fla.mabl/

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• Homophone: inflammables
• Hyphenation: in‧fla‧mmable

inflammable (plural inflammables)

1. flammable, inflammable

   Antonym: ininflammable

• inflammabilité

• “inflammable”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.