“Fire”: one syllable or two? | Ask the Editor | Britannica Dictionary
The word fire can be pronounced with one syllable or two.
Shelly asks if fire is one syllable or two because her students are using the word in haiku.
Our Pronunciation Editor Josh Guenter responds:
The word fire can be pronounced with either one or two syllables. Native speakers can rhyme fire with higher or not. The word higher is always two syllables. Hence, if you rhyme fire with higher, then you are pronouncing fire with two syllables, whereas if you don’t rhyme these two words, then you are pronouncing fire with just one syllable.
Definitely 2 for me. Not sure how you would distinguish fire from other words if only 1. Fur, Fear, Fir, etc just don’t seem like the correct word to my ears. Fire rhymes with Tire in my head, and that is why the phrase tire fire has phonetic weight.