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I'd always though that "flammable" means "not hard to set on fire" while "inflammable" is closer to "really, extremely, absurdly easy to set on fire".


From dictionary.com:

flammable: "easily set on fire; combustible; inflammable."

inflammable: "capable of being set on fire; combustible; flammable."

[Standard boilerplate about dictionaries being imperfect reflections of what words actually mean.]

[Perhaps less-standard boilerplate about how words can mean different things in different places.]

Whatever the nuances are, "inflammable" doesn't mean "fireproof", which is my main point.




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