Meanings
plural bonfirings
- gerundgerund of bonfire
- ceramicsThe act of firing pottery using a bonfire.
Most women's traditions involve open firing such as bonfiring, pitfiring, or a fire surrounded by a low wall. More unusually, in Cyprus, Colombia and the Canaries individual potters have their own kilns.
2000, Moira Vincentelli, “Gender, Technology and Technique”, in Women and Ceramics: Gendered Vessels, Manchester; New York, N.Y.: Manchester University Press, →ISBN, page 422 more examples
Bonfiring has a very direct contact between the pottery and the flame. Firing time is usually quite short and the pots are carefully supervised through the process. Bonfiring, in general, does not create the same amount of wasters as kiln firing […]
2004, Moira Vincentelli, Women Potters: Transforming Traditions, Rutgers University Press, →ISBN, page 212[…]while open bonfiring was practiced mainly by women and universally used in African traditions where it has a very low failure rate. It has been characterized as technically simple though in fact it requires a hyper refined combination of specific clay body, fuel, firing technique and atmospheric conditions - formulas derived from local experimentation mainly by generations of women.
2018, Kerstin Pinther, Alexandra Weigand, Flow of Forms/Forms of Flow: Design Histories between Africa and Europe, →ISBN, page 102
- gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of bonfire
Origin
Cite this entry
bonfiring. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bonfiring
“bonfiring.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bonfiring. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “bonfiring,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bonfiring.
Source: bonfiring on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.