guy fawkes night
noun
Simple meaning
Effigies of Guy Fawkes are burned on this night.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
gyfawksnytSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɡaɪfɔksnaɪt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
British
Effigies of Guy Fawkes are burned on this night
british
The revelry on Guy Fawkes Day (the 5th of November) in commemoration of the failure of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, traditionally including the burning of effigies of the pope, Guy Fawkes, and/or the Devil.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: Effigies of Guy Fawkes are burned on this night
Used this way, guy fawkes night is a word tied to one variety of English that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. Most speakers understand it but seldom reach for it.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Regional
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Uncommon in everyday speech
Usage note
Mainly used in British English, so it may read as unusual elsewhere.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.