n. pl. in·fer·nos 1. A violent conflagration: “Scores of buildings had been gutted in the inferno, and small fires were consuming any that had survived the night” (Neal Bascomb). 2. A place or condition of extreme heat: “Five more days of hiking through this inferno was too much to contemplate” (Jeffrey Tayler). 3. A place or condition suggestive of hell, especially with respect to human suffering or death: the inferno of battle. [Italian, hell, (popularized in English in the 19th century by its use as the English title of Dante's Inferno, a description of hell that forms the first part of his work The Divine Comedy), from Late Latin īnfernus, hell; see INFERNAL.] |
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