Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An unintended electric arc, as between two pieces of apparatus.
  • noun The temperature point at which the heat in an area is high enough to ignite all flammable material simultaneously.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The near simultaneous ignition of all combustible material in an enclosed area.
  • noun An unintended electric discharge or arc over or around an insulator

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an unintended electric discharge (as over or around an insulator)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

flash +‎ over

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Examples

  • TODD: Federal officials tell us it only takes about a minute - and-a-half for what they call a flashover -- for the cabin to be engulfed in smoke, as shown in this simulation.

    CNN Transcript Mar 7, 2007 2007

  • But Lentini says science proves these pour patterns were really caused by a recently accepted phenomenon called flashover, the point, when a fire in a room becomes a room on fire.

    CNN Transcript Apr 9, 2007 2007

  • But tests conducted in the 1990s showed that fires can hit the point of "flashover" - when all combustible surfaces ignite at once - in under four minutes with no accelerants.

    The Seattle Times 2012

  • She said he (Randhir) went to test the power at about 12. 45pm when the accident, which is referred to as a flashover - the near simultaneous ignition of all combustible material in an enclosed area - occurred.

    IOL: News 2010

  • The fire in Graf's shed on Aug. 26, 1986, quickly mushroomed to intense burning known as flashover, or full involvement.

    AltWeeklies.com Site Feed 2009

  • "flashover" -- meaning an unintended power surge that causes spontaneous combustion.

    LAist 2008

  • The firefighters had managed to pull one victim from the home and were trying to find the other person when they were caught in a "flashover,..."

    Archive 2007-07-01 2007

  • The firefighters had managed to pull one victim from the home and were trying to find the other person when they were caught in a "flashover,..."

    Captain Matt Burton & Eng. Scott Desmond, Fallen Heroes 2007

  • Once they start dying off, there's going to be a kind of flashover thing where video games are no longer the scary, difficult niche hobby, and are regarded more in the same way as we regard TV or the internet.

    The Death of the Board Game, Part 2 Greg Tannahill 2006

  • Once "flashover" occurs, where the fire has ignited the room, occupants have only three to seven minutes to evacuate, Deputy Chief Frank Lamie said in an interview.

    INSIDETORONTO - Home 2010

Comments

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  • n. the moment a conversation becomes real and alive, which occurs when a spark of trust shorts out the delicate circuits you keep insulated under layers of irony, momentarily grounding the static emotional charge you’ve built up through decades of friction with the world.

    From dictionary of obscure sorrows. I did NOT write this.

    November 14, 2017