From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishpyrepyre /paɪə $ paɪr/ noun [countable] MXa high pile of wood on which a dead body is placed to be burned in a funeral ceremony a funeral pyre
Examples from the Corpus
pyre• But what if everything was burned on a pyre sixty years ago?• She rode around the blazing pyre.• The dead have ritually been interred in pyramids, cremated on burning pyres, and sunk beneath the oceans' waves.• The birds returned, invaded Bird Spirit Land and flocked and swarmed above the funeral pyre.• M., Ramdas, the third son of the Mahatma, set fire to the funeral pyre.• Huge pyres of old railway sleepers and fence posts are being built to burn the bodies.• Nine days they lamented him; then they laid him on a lofty pyre and set fire to it.• Smoke from Scathach's pyre was black, rising high into the dusk.Origin pyre (1600-1700) Latin pyra, from Greek, from pyr “fire” 