A sparkler is a small firework you hold in your hand: a thin metal stick coated at one end with a mixture that burns slowly, throwing off bright white or coloured sparks. It does not explode and it does not fly — it just burns, brilliantly, for perhaps thirty seconds to a minute, and then it is done. Because it is safe enough for children to hold (with an adult nearby), the sparkler is the firework of family celebrations. In Britain you see them on Bonfire Night in November; in America on the Fourth of July. And everywhere they go on birthday cakes — the tall thin ones stuck into the icing, fountaining sparks over the candles while everyone sings. Restaurants use them for the same reason: a dessert arriving with a sparkler in it announces itself. Countable: a sparkler, a box of sparklers. One classic thing people do with them: wave a lit sparkler in the air and your eye keeps the trail for a moment, so you can write your name in light. It disappears as fast as you draw it, and that is half the pleasure. A second meaning, worth knowing but not worth using: sparkler is old informal slang for a diamond, from the way it flashes. You may meet it in older novels or films. Nobody says it much now. One honest caution about the object itself. Sparklers feel gentle, and people treat them casually, but they burn extremely hot — hot enough to burn skin badly, and the wire stays dangerous after the sparks stop. That is why the standard advice is to drop a finished one straight into a bucket of water rather than put it down.

仙女棒（手持的小型煙火，會噴火花但不會爆炸）。生日蛋糕上插的那種細長型在台灣也常見；注意不是「沖天炮」也不是「仙女散花」。