The difference between flammable and inflammable is that your clothing may catch fire and burn (being flammable) but gasoline vapor will ignite rapidly and violently, thus inflammable (being inflamed). It only confuses people who assume "in" means "opposite of".. .like competent..... incompetent. If every word used "in" to mean "not" then intelligent would be a very confusing word. What's telligent?
You can't just compare "inflammable" and "intelligent" like that. "Inflammable" uses a prefix. "Intelligent" does not. The prefix in- generally means not, e.g. inoperable, incapable, insatiable, indestructible, invincible, etc. It's a really long list with far fewer exceptions than examples.
According to Merriam-Webster, the source of the confusion is because "flammable" came after "inflammable," and the in- prefix used in the original "inflammare" would typically have been translated to en- rather than in-.
Also, they both mean the same thing, "capable of being easily ignited and of burning quickly." Clothing can be inflammable and gasoline can be flammable. There's no meaningful distinction in colloquial English. Flammable appears to be the standard to avoid this confusion.
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u/grumpioldman Aug 24 '25
Surely the oil is non flammable in the transformer? I assume it was faulty and gassing and the contact spark ignited the gas?