How to Use pyre in a Sentence

pyre

noun
  • The fire is lit through a chimney in the center of the pyre.
    Alvaro Barrientos, Fox News, 13 Sep. 2018
  • Take a nighttime boat ride down the Ganges in Varanasi, past the burning pyres66.
    WSJ, 26 Oct. 2017
  • As carts filled with bodies roll toward a mass pyre, Schindler spots the girl among the dead.
    Washington Post, 21 Apr. 2022
  • The weaker men maintained the pyres that smoldered through the night, filling the air with the heavy smell of burning flesh.
    Matthew Shaer, Smithsonian, 2 May 2017
  • The weaker men maintained the pyres that smoldered through the night, filling the air with the heavy smell of burning flesh.
    Matthew Shaer, Smithsonian, 29 Mar. 2017
  • Yes! ‘Tis our day, my neighbors to light these pyres and feast by these mighty waters!
    Lauren Daley, BostonGlobe.com, 23 June 2023
  • Open pyres burn along the waterside, their bright flames dancing in the air with all the drama of a scene from Game of Thrones.
    Skye McAlpine, Condé Nast Traveler, 12 June 2018
  • The girl sees the widows all around her kill themselves on a great funeral pyre.
    Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 3 Apr. 2023
  • Not for the Pixar toys the yearnings of Pinocchio or the existential anguish of the rabbit on the pyre.
    Ross Douthat, National Review, 11 July 2019
  • At the last minute, an eagle would be released from the pyre, presumably glad to escape the flames.
    Mary Beard, The New Yorker, 26 June 2023
  • In this case, the pyre was carefully sealed beneath a raft of two dozen bricks, arranged in four rows.
    Franz Lidz, New York Times, 25 Mar. 2023
  • One crew hauled stretchers filled with corpses up the ramp, and another crew pushed the bodies onto the pyre.
    Matthew Shaer, Smithsonian, 2 May 2017
  • But a grisly mix-up had been made on the death certificate, and soon the wrong body would be burned on the funeral pyre.
    Los Angeles Times, 29 Oct. 2020
  • The family travelled to Tibet to retrieve and cremate the body in a pyre at base camp.
    Nick Paumgarten, The New Yorker, 22 Jan. 2022
  • Holika, who was immune to fire, tricked Prahlada to sit in a pyre with her.
    Abhishyant Kidangoor, Time, 9 Mar. 2020
  • Kratos and his son, Atreus, are out in the woods, chopping down a tree to be used for a funeral pyre for their dead wife and mother.
    Andrew Webster, The Verge, 12 Apr. 2018
  • On the eve of the festival, large pyres are lit in many parts of India to signify the burning of evil spirits.
    Abhishyant Kidangoor, Time, 9 Mar. 2020
  • In a tradition dating back at least 200 years, a snowman figure called the Böögg is hoisted aloft a pyre in the square and set afire.
    Susan Steade, The Mercury News, 24 Apr. 2017
  • Think of the blazing boat burials written about in Icelandic sagas, or the pyre of legendary Beowulf.
    Byandrew Curry, science.org, 5 Jan. 2023
  • At the open-air pyre in Colorado, I was held within the elegant bamboo walls, which kept mourners safe as the flames shot high.
    Caitlin Doughty, Time, 4 Oct. 2017
  • The child is burned on a pyre in yet another death ceremony.
    Omar L. Gallaga, Washington Post, 24 Oct. 2022
  • Another young man in his late 30s was standing near a burning pyre.
    Vedika Sud, CNN, 4 June 2021
  • Colorful flags flapped in the salt air, and in the distance, the smoke of a burning pyre rose up from a graveyard shared by Hindus, Christians, and Muslims.
    Patrice Grell Yursik, Travel + Leisure, 27 May 2021
  • As a priest lit the funeral pyre, close friends of Paudel came together to reminisce.
    Anish Bhattarai, BostonGlobe.com, 17 Jan. 2023
  • Maybe Taylor is burning them in a giant funeral pyre just out of view.
    Charles Manning, Cosmopolitan, 31 Oct. 2016
  • The wood collected by Zeidel and his fellow prisoners would form the pyres.
    Matthew Shaer, Smithsonian, 29 Mar. 2017
  • The family and its inner circle gather as the child's body is burned on a funeral pyre.
    Randall Colburn, EW.com, 24 Oct. 2022
  • Stack plenty of extra dry tinder and kindling of various sizes near the pyre.
    T. Edward Nickens, Field & Stream, 9 Jan. 2017
  • In Tahiti, trucks roamed the streets of Papeete to collect the dead, and great funeral pyres burned day and night to incinerate the bodies.
    Ashley Halsey Iii, Washington Post, 27 Jan. 2018
  • The father and son wound up on a cannabis farm in Mendocino County, where they were shot, beheaded, and then incinerated on a pile of burning tires, with live chickens thrown into the pyre.
    Paige St. John, Los Angeles Times, 13 Nov. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'pyre.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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