Also pl. feux de joie. [Fr.; lit. ‘fire of joy.’]
† 1. A bonfire; also fig. Obs.
1609. Bp. W. Barlow, Answ. Nameless Cath., 11. The Iesuites … would with Nero haue been pleasant Spectators thereof, as at a Feu-de-ioy.
1658. J. Robinson, Eudoxa, i. 10. Unexpected calamities will quench the feudejoy of a long fore-set gratulation.
1771. Mrs. Griffith, trans. Viand’s Shipwreck, 159. To illuminate our feux de joye.
[1888. J. Payn, Myst. Mirbridge, vii. The news that the Home Farm was on fire, which he announced as though it were a feu de joie.]
2. (See quot. 1867.)
1801. Sporting Mag., XIX. Dec., 146/1. [They] had fired a feu-de-joye opposite their Major’s house.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Feu-de-joie, a salute fired by musketry on occasions of public rejoicing, so that it should pass from man to man rapidly and steadily down one rank and up the other, giving one long continuous sound.
