(n.) A large fire built in the open air, as an expression of public joy and exultation, or for amusement.
Example Sentences:
(1) We used to have a really good night in here on Bonfire night.” Communities across the UK are facing the same unwillingness by civic bodies to stage Bonfire night celebrations.
(2) But yesterday the Tories said the move was laughable as the number of quangos had risen dramatically since Labour came to power in 1997, despite a promise by Gordon Brown in opposition of a "bonfire of the quangos".
(3) They had a sprawling back garden on two tiers and with a steep bank down to the main road below; this was where the big bonfire used to burn.
(4) Jim Docking, Betchworth, Surrey Any answers Why is it a "bonfire", rather than plain "fire"?
(5) Indeed, UK Sport, now the subject of so much ministerial genuflection, was among the agencies earmarked for Francis Maude's "bonfire of the quangos" less than two years ago.
(6) It was published this week in response to freedom of information requests and immediately caused a stir with its controversial call for a bonfire of traditional employee rights.
(7) The bonfire of red tape is a surprisingly modest conflagration, which the (mainly industry-funded) potato people will survive.
(8) I said to Ben-David: ‘Enough!’ I got into the car and suddenly I saw a huge bonfire and understood the meaning.
(9) Any witness in any proceeding – proper judicial, or quasi judicial – is unlikely to throw any fuel on that particular bonfire.
(10) At least, that’s what I tell myself as I light another cigarette off the bonfire I made from burning all my daughter’s sexist toys.
(11) The " bonfire of the quangos " saw the Food Standards Agency severely cut and stripped of responsibility for food quality.
(12) It would be a bonfire of rights that Labour governments secured within the EU.
(13) Labour made him head of the Homes and Communities Agency; the Tories, evidently impressed by such a bonfire of public assets, made him their permanent secretary for communities and local government.
(14) With Halloweeen and Bonfire night behind us, the countdown to Christmas has truly started.
(15) One issue is the lack of a single voice for cycling issues in government after Cycling England was abolished in April in the "bonfire of the quangos".
(16) Chief among these, according to Labour, was Cameron's threat, if elected, to burn, in a "bonfire of quangos", Ofcom, which is conducting the review of pay television vehemently opposed by the substantially Murdoch-owned BSkyB.
(17) They have been placed on the bonfire of austerity, a necessary sacrifice, and as they burn, we warm our hands.
(18) Tories David Cameron said that the media regulator will be stripped of its policy-making functions, which will be returned to the government, as part of his "bonfire of the quangos".
(19) The leader of the Greens, Christine Milne, said she was concerned the so-called “regulation bonfire” contained some “very bitter pills” including changes to environmental protections.
(20) In fairness to Cameron, he understands this and disowns the "bonfire" phrase as simplistic.