flare

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

• intransitive verb To flame up with a bright, wavering light.
• intransitive verb To burst into intense, sudden flame.
• intransitive verb To erupt or intensify suddenly.
• intransitive verb To become suddenly angry. Used with up.
• intransitive verb To make a sudden angry verbal attack. Used with out.
• intransitive verb To expand or open outward in shape.
• intransitive verb To cause to flame up.
• intransitive verb To signal with a blaze of light.
• noun A brief wavering blaze of light.
• noun A device that produces a bright light for signaling, illumination, or identification.
• noun An outbreak, as of emotion or activity.
• noun An expanding or opening outward.
• noun An unwanted reflection within an optical system or the resultant fogging of the image.
• noun A solar flare.
• noun Football A short pass to a back running toward the sideline.
• noun Baseball A fly ball hit a short distance into the outfield.
• noun Medicine An area of redness on the skin surrounding the primary site of infection or irritation.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To shine out with sudden and unsteady light, luster, or splendor; give out a dazzling light.
• To waver; flutter; burn with an unsteady light, as flame in a current of air; hence, to flutter, as such flame does; flutter with gaudy show.
• To open or spread outward, like the mouth of a trumpet.
• To incline outward from a perpendicular, as a ship's sides or bows, or any similar formation: opposed to tumble home.
• To cause to burn with a flaring flame; hence, to display glaringly; exhibit in an ostentatious manner.
• noun A glaring, unsteady, wavering light; a glare: as, the flare of an expiring candle.
• noun A spreading outward; a terminal or a continuous broadening, as of a trumpet or a lily, the side of a vessel of any kind, etc.
• noun In photography, same as ghost, 8.
• noun Ostentation.
• noun Synonyms Glare, etc. See flame, n.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun An unsteady, broad, offensive light.
• noun A spreading outward.
• noun (Photog.) A defect in a photographic objective such that an image of the stop, or diaphragm, appears as a fogged spot in the center of the developed negative.
• noun Leaf of lard.
• intransitive verb To burn with an unsteady or waving flame.
• intransitive verb To shine out with a sudden and unsteady light; to emit a dazzling or painfully bright light.
• intransitive verb To shine out with gaudy colors; to flaunt; to be offensively bright or showy.
• intransitive verb obsolete To be exposed to too much light.
• intransitive verb To open or spread outwards; to project beyond the perpendicular
• intransitive verb [Colloq.] to become suddenly heated or excited; to burst into a passion.

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

• noun A brightly burning light used to attract attention in an emergency, or to illuminate an area.
• noun A widening of an object with an otherwise roughly constant width, e.g. on the lower legs of trousers and jeans.
• noun aviation The transition from downward flight to level flight just before landing.
• noun baseball A low fly ball that is hit in the region between the infielders and the outfielders
• noun military An aircraft-released countermeasure to counter an infrared-homing missile.
• verb intransitive To blaze brightly.
• verb intransitive To burn unsteadily.
• verb intransitive, often with “up” or “out” To burst out suddenly, as in anger.
• verb transitive, intransitive To open outward in shape.
• verb transitive To cause to burn.

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

• noun a sudden outburst of emotion