An ember is a small piece of burning wood or coal that glows with heat but no longer has visible flames. When a campfire dies down, what remains are embers: bits of wood that glow red or orange in the darkness, still hot enough to warm your hands or restart a fire with fresh kindling.

Embers can stay dangerously hot for hours after flames disappear. That's why park rangers remind campers to pour water on their fire pits until the embers stop hissing. A single ember carried by the wind can start a forest fire far away from the original campfire.

The word also appears in the phrase dying embers, which describes something fading away but not quite gone. You might talk about the dying embers of summer vacation as September approaches, or the dying embers of a friendship that's slowly ending. This usage suggests something that once burned brightly but now barely glows, though a careful effort might still bring it back to life.