Afar means from or at a great distance. When you watch fireworks from afar, you're viewing them from far away, perhaps from across town where you can see the bursts of color but barely hear the booms. When explorers first spotted land afar, they saw it as a distant shape on the horizon before they could make out any details.

The word almost always appears in the phrase from afar. You might admire a talented athlete from afar, watching their games but never meeting them personally. A hiker standing on a mountain ridge might spot a lake glimmering from afar, miles away in the valley below.

There's something poetic about afar. It suggests not just physical distance but a kind of longing or wonder: observing something beautiful or important from a place where you can see it but can't quite reach it. When someone says they've “come from afar,” they're emphasizing just how far they've traveled to arrive at this moment.