Definition: used to describe one who worships fire.

Quotation: “That night they sat at the fire like ghosts in their dusty beards and clothing, rapt, pyrolatrous.” from Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.

That’s the kind of word that’ll make you sit up and pay attention. McCarthy seems to do this a lot in his book. You’ll be cruising along with nice, everyday parlance and all of the sudden he’s mashing together Greek word parts and throwing them in your face. But looking back on the sentence and its context after reading the definition, it does convey a lot of meaning in a little space. “Ghosts” and “pyrolatrous” taken together lend an otherworldly air to the scene. I guess that’s why they pay him the big bucks.