Fire v.¹

Forms: 1 fýrian, 3 furen(ü), 4–7 fyre, (4 fijre, 5 firin), 6–7 fier, 4– fire. [f. FIRE sb.; OE. had fýrian (once, in sense 1); cf. OHG. fiurên to be on fire, fiuren to set on fire (MHG. viuren, mod.G. feuern).]

  † 1.  trans. To supply with firing. (Only OE.)

c. 970.  Canons of Edgar, Penitents, § 14. Fede þearfan and scryde and husiȝe and fyriȝe, baॠiȝe and beddiȝe.

  2.  trans. To set on fire, so as to damage or destroy; sometimes, to consume or destroy by fire.

a. 1400–50.  Alexander, 2217. A full thousand he fangid to fire þe foure ȝatis.

c. 1440.  Promp. Parv., 162/1. Fyrin, or sette on a fyre, or brinnyn.

c. 1490.  Adam Bel, 117, in Ritson, Anc. Pop. P., 9.

1592.  Lyly, Midas, I. i. Least desiring things above my reach, I be fiered with Phaeton: or against nature, and be drowned with Icarus: and so perishing, the world shall both laugh and wonder.

1699.  Bentley, Phal., 77. For let us suppose with Mr. D. that Cylon fired the Pythagorean College at Olymp. LXXII, 3. tho’ this appears to be set XVII years too low.

1840.  Thirlwall, Greece, VII. lvi. 180. He fired his camp.

1848.  Kingsley, Saint’s Trag., III. ii. When all your stacks were fired, she lent you gold.

  b.  To light, kindle, ignite (anything intended for the purpose; now only a beacon, or something explosive).

1393.  Gower, Conf., I. 81.

c. 1489.  Caxton, Sonnes of Aymon, xvii. 399. He toke a torche and fyred it, and pytched it bytwene the strawe and the bedsted, so that it helde faste evyn byfore the vysage of Charlemagne.

1571.  Digges, Pantom., Pref. A iij b. He hath also sundrie times by the Sunne beames fired Powder, and dischargde Ordinance half a mile and more distante.

1665.  Sir T. Roe’s Voy. E. Ind., 428. When that day of their general mourning is ended, and begins to die into night, they fire an innumerable company of lamps, and other lights, which they hang or fix very thick, and set upon the tops of their houses.

1795.  Phil. Trans., LXXXV. 461. Out of twenty, three and four inch white lights, which were fired at Beachy Head, only three of them were seen.

1860.  Tyndall, Glac., II. iii. 242. Gunpowder could easily be fired by the heat of the sun’s rays converged.

  † c.  To fire about: to surround with fires. Obs.

c. 1440.  Bone Flor., 709.

  † d.  Used in the imperative as an imprecation.

1751.  Foote, Taste, II. Wks. 1799, I. 23. Nov. Fire me, my Lord, there may be more in this than we can guess. Ibid. (1760), Minor, I. ibid., I. 241. Load. Fire him, a snub-nos’d son of a bitch.

  3.  fig. To set (a person) on fire; to inspire with passion or strong feeling or desire; to inflame, heat, animate. Also, to kindle or inflame (a passion, etc.).

a. 1225.  St. Marher., 18. Wið þe halwunde fur of þe hali gast moncunne froure fure min heorte.

c. 1385.  Chaucer, L. G. W., 1013, Dido. That al the world her beute hadde y-fyred.

a. 1420.  Hoccleve, De Regimine Principum, 3835.

1602.  Marston, Antonio’s Rev., II. iii. Wks. 1856, I. 97.

1697.  Dryden, Virg. Pastorals, VIII. 99.

1728.  Young, Odes to the King, Wks. 1757, I. 176.

1749.  Fielding, Tom Jones, XV. iv. Lady Bellaston, perceiving she had fired the young lord’s pride, began now, like a true orator, to rouse other passions to its assistance.

1775.  Johnson, Tax. no Tyr., 22. The nations of Europe were fired with boundless expectation, and the discoverers pursuing their enterprise, made conquests in both hemispheres of wide extent.

1813.  Scott, Rokeby, I. xii.

a. 1862.  Buckle, Misc. Wks. (1872), I. 13. It was made in Venice, that land so calculated to fire the imagination of a poet; the land of marvels, the land of poetry and romance, the land of painting and of song.

1881.  Mallock, Romance Nineteenth Cent., II. 62. These imaginations fired him with a new longing for her.

  † b.  = FEAGUE v. 2 b.

1737.  H. Bracken, Farriery Impr. (ed. 2), II. 61. You may chance to get a View of the Horses without the Dealer’s having first put them upon their Mettle, or fired them, as it is called; for the last of these they will do, if possible, unless the Horse happens to set his Tail naturally, which few do, or that he has been cut, in order to make him carry it up higher.

  4.  intr. To catch fire, to be kindled or ignited; † also, to be consumed by fire. Of a coal mine: (see quot. 1892). To fire up: (of a volcano) to burst into flame.

a. 1618.  Raleigh, Apol., 29. For I will fire with the Gallioones if it come to extreamity.

1681.  Lond. Gaz., No. 1628/2. In this Fight, the Frigat fired twice.

1731.  S. Hales, Stat. Ess., I. 270. As in the case where houses are first beginning to fire, in the chymists elaboratories.

1774.  Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1862), I. viii. 39. Gunpowder will readily fire with a spark.

1869.  Phillips, Vesuv., iii. 59. On the 20th of April rain came with the Sirocco, and the mountain, as usual, fired up.

1892.  Northumb. Gloss., s.v. A pit is said to have fired when an explosion of gas has taken place.

  b.  transf. Of flax: To become covered with black spots as if burnt.

1814.  W. S. Mason, Surv. Ireland, I. XIII. ix. 265. They find from experience that the latter [American flax-seed] fired much more than the former [Dutch flax-seed].

  5.  fig. To become inflamed, heated, or excited. To fire up: to show sudden heat or anger.

1568.  T. Howell, Arb. Amitie (1879), 38.

1604.  Marston, Malcontent, V. ii. Women are flax, and will fire in a moment.

1749.  Fielding, Tom Jones, V. x. The parson, who was not only strictly chaste in his own person, but a great enemy to the opposite vice in all others, fired at this information.

1798.  Jane Austen, Northang. Abb. (1833), I. vi. 25. If I were to hear any body speak slightingly of you, I should fire up in a moment.

1824.  W. Irving, T. Trav., I. 261. She fired up at the arrogance of the squire, and the prudery of the daughter.

1832.  Examiner, 388/1. His heart swells, and his imagination fires.

1840.  Dickens, Barn. Rudge, xli. If any one, (except my father) had called me a fool for my pains, how I should have fired and fumed!

  6.  transf. a. trans. To redden or cause to glow as if on fire; to suffuse with a fiery hue.

1593.  Shaks., Rich. II., III. ii. 41.

1633.  P. Fletcher, Purple Isl., ii. 10.

1784.  Cowper, Task, V. 1.

1878.  B. Taylor, Deukalion, II. ii. 58.

  b.  intr. To glow as if on fire; to grow as red as fire.

1865.  J. C. Wilcocks, Sea Fisherman (1875), 118. When the water fires, or, as the fishermen term it, ‘brimes,’ Congers rarely feed well.

1886.  A. Lang, Lett. to Dead Authors, xvii. 177. Watching the yellow bees in the ivy bloom, and the reflected pine forest in the water-pools, watching the sunset as it faded, and the dawn as it fired, and weaving all fair and fleeting things into a tissue where light and music were at one, that was the task of Shelley!

  7.  a. trans. To affect (the body) with a burning sensation. ? Obs. b. intr. To become heated or inflamed. ? U.S.

1673.  Ray, Journ. Low C., 459. They [olives] are then notwithstanding of a horrid and ungrateful taste, firing the throat and palate of one that eats them.

1889.  Century Dict., s.v. His feet fire easily in walking. (Colloq.)

  8.  trans. To drive (any one) away from a place by fire; with out, out of, from, or equivalent const. Also fig. Obs. or rare.

1530.  Palsgr., 551/1. Come out, or I shall fyre the out.

1590.  Marlowe, Edw. II., III. ii.

1605.  Shaks., Lear, V. iii. 23.

1615.  Byfield, Expos. Col. iii. 5. Lust will not vsually out of the soule if it get any footing, till it bee fired out with confession and godly sorrow.

1677.  W. Hubbard, Narrative, 128. The rest of the Enemy being first fired out of their strong hold, were taken and destroyed, a great number of them being seized in the places where they intended to have hid themselves, the rest fled out of their own country over Connecticut river, up toward the Dutch plantation.

1718.  Swift, Let. Dubl. Wkly. Jrnl., 21 Sept. The law is like the wooden houses of our ancestors, with wooden furniture, where you are continually offended with knots and hurt with flaws, and are very often fired out of all you have.

  † b.  To force (a way) by fire. Obs.

1671.  Crowne, Juliana, II. Dram. Wks. 1873, I. 53.

  9.  trans. To subject to the action of fire; to prepare by heat; e.g., to bake (pottery, bricks, etc.); to dry or cure (tea or tobacco) by artificial heat.

1662.  R. Mathew, Unl. Alch., lxxxix. 171. The gentlier thou dost fire, the better will thy Work be.

1782.  Wedgwood, in Phil. Trans., LXXII. 307. The kiln in which our glazed ware is fired furnishes three measures, the bottom being of one heat, the middle of a greater, and the top still greater.

1805.  J. Nicol, Poems, I. 28 (Jam.). The dough is then rolled thin, and cut into small scones, which, when fired, are handed round the company.

1835.  Beverley, Lighting Act, ii. 18. Hoop, fire, cleanse, wash or scald any cask or tub.

1875.  The Saturday Review, XL. 30 Oct., 553/1–2. For green tea the leaf is ‘fired’ within two hours of picking, and retains certain properties rendering it more liable to the action of the atmosphere, against which, he says, the ‘slight facing’ is an important preservative agency.

1883.  U. S. 10th Census Report Agric., Tobacco, 92. If a damp spell occurs after the barn is filled with tobacco it is sometimes fired with wood to save it.

1888.  Pall Mall G., 19 Nov., 2/1. The work is fired, again painted with enamels, again fired, and so on.

  10.  Farriery. To burn; cauterize.

1607.  Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1658), 299. Then to give him the fire, which Absyrtus doth not allow, saving the Spleen lyeth so, as it cannot easily be fired, to do him any good.

1677.  Lond. Gaz., No. 1201/4. A … Hunting Gelding … fired for the Spaven … on the near leg behind.

1737.  H. Bracken, Farriery Impr. (1756), I. 320. I see no Harm in Firing or Cauterizing young Colts, that are slender legg’d, upon the back Sinews, before they are lam’d, and absolutely require such Operation.

1869.  E. Farmer, Scrap Bk. (ed. 6), 27.

  11.  To supply (a furnace, etc.) with fuel; to attend to the fire of (an engine).

1760.  Goldsm., Cit. W., xciii. ¶ 3. A man here who should write, and honestly confess that he wrote for bread, might as well send his manuscript to fire the baker’s oven; not one creature will read him; all must be court-bred poets, or pretend at least to be court-bred, who can expect to please.

1862.  Smiles, Engineers, III. 24–5. They worked together there for about two years, by twelve-hour shifts, George firing the engine at the wage of a shilling a-day.

1890.  Daily News, 26 Dec., 5/7. The Edinburgh Works have as much coal as will fire the retorts for at least eight or ten days.

1894.  Chamb. Jrnl., XL. 30 June, 414/1. The voyage is noteworthy from the circumstance that the boilers were fired by oil.

  b.  absol. Also with up: To make up a fire; to light up the fire of a furnace; hence colloq. to light one’s pipe.

1879.  Baring-Gould, Germany, II. 368. In the depth of winter, when the thermometer is some degrees below zero, it is quite enough to fire up twice in the twenty-four hours.

1881.  M. Reynolds, Engine-Driving Life, 17. He allows the fireman to find out how to fire, when to fire, and where to fire; he allows him to choke the fire in his own presence.

1890.  R. M. Johnston, Travis and Major Jonathan Wilby, in Century Mag., XL. May, 127/2. When we had fired up, he grew more and more in cordial mood.

1893.  Catholic News, 21 Oct., 6/5. I had been firing on the line for five years back.

  c.  To fire off (a kiln): to cause it to cease burning.

1884.  C. T. Davis, Bricks, etc., 283. When the first kiln has been fired off the air passes through that kiln into the adjacent one.

  12.  To apply fire to (a charge of gunpowder) in order to cause its explosion; to discharge or let off (a gun, firework, etc.), explode (a mine, etc.). Also, to fire off.

  To fire a salute, to fire a certain number of guns as a salute; to fire a broadside, to fire all the guns on one side of a ship. Also fig.

1530.  Palsgr., 550/1. Fyer this pece … affustez ceste piece.

1602.  Shaks., Ham., V. ii. 281.

1699.  W. Hacke, Collect. Orig. Voy., IV. 37. They load them [Guns] with loose Powder, go with Chambers, and they fire them with Stone-shot, they being about 18 Foot long.

1705.  Berkeley, Cave Dunmore, Wks. 1871, IV. 506. Here I desired one of our company to fire off his gun; the sound we heard for a considerable time roll through the hollows of the earth, and at length it could not so properly be said to cease as go out of our hearing.

1799.  G. Smith, Laboratory, I. 17. These sort of rockets are fired on a board or stand, placed between four small sticks.

1840.  R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, xxvii. 91. At sundown, another salute of the same number of guns was fired, and all the flags run down.

1847.  Marryat, Childr. N. Forest, xv. A shriek was given, and Edward fired his gun into the body of the man, who immediately fell.

1883.  J. Gilmour, Among the Mongols, xxvi. 315. A grey-headed old man comes out and fires off crackers.

1886.  Mrs. Lynn Linton, Paston Carew, III. xi. 240. Only when Mary fired a broadside into her character—calling her a bold, bad, brazen-faced slut—only then did Mrs. Richard give tongue in her behalf.

  b.  causal. To cause to discharge a fire-arm.

1847.  Infantry Man. (1854), 42. The instructor will fire each recruit singly.

  13.  intr. or absol. To discharge a gun or other fire-arm; to shoot. Const. at, upon, into, etc.

  Fire! as a word of command, is now apprehended as the vb. in the imperative; originally it was prob. the sb. (= Fr. feu).

c. 1645.  I. Tullie, Siege of Carlisle (1840), 47. Stradling … threatened to fire upon them.

1719.  De Foe, Crusoe (1840), II. iv. 93. As the savages kept near one another, a little behind, in a line, he fired, and hit two of them directly. Ibid. (1721), Col. Jack (1840), 227. We had orders not to fire upon the burghers, unless constrained to it by evident necessity.

1794.  Southey, Botany Bay Ecl., II.

1848.  Macaulay, Hist. Eng., II. 250. Devonshire replied that he had been fired at from Colepepper’s windows.

1855.  Haliburton (‘Sam Slick’), Nat. & Hum. Nat., I. viii. 231. He has fired into the wrong flock this time, I’ll teach him not to do it again or my name is not Sam Slick.

1885.  Law Times, 9 May, 29/2. The plaintiff … fired at him, but did not hit him.

  b.  transf. (Bell-ringing.) To ring all the bells in a peal at once.

1788–1880.  [cf. FIRING 6 b].

  c.  fig. To fire away: to start off and proceed (in a speech or action) with energy and rapidity; to ‘go ahead.’ colloq.

1775.  Mad. D’Arblay, Early Diary, 4 March. We all went into the library, and Mr. Burney fired away in a voluntary.

1840.  Marryat, Poor Jack, xvii. Now then, Billy, fire away.

1841.  E. FitzGerald, Lett. (1889) I. 67. Then Edgeworth fires away about the Odes of Pindar—and Donne is very æsthetic about Mr Hallam’s Book.

1880.  Payn, Confid. Agents, III. 156. Vaar good; you tell it to me, and I will tell it to him. Fire away.

  14.  intr. Of a gun, etc.: To go off.

1668.  Lond. Gaz., No. 260/4. The Gun fired, killing two men.

1799.  Naval Chron., I. 440. As some men were taking out a quantity of six-inch live shells fixed, by some means the fuses of several caught fire, and blew up with a dreadful explosion, which was heard over all the three towns: two men and a boy were killed, and four severely wounded.

1816.  Sporting Mag., XLVII. 194. The keepers … heard a gun fire.

  b.  fig. To go off in an explosion of passion.

1848.  Thackeray, Van. Fair, lxiv. Madame de Belladonna made him a scene about you, and fired off in one of her furies.

  15.  trans. To eject or propel (a missile) from a gun or other fire-arm. To fire away: to consume (ammunition) by firing.

1588.  Shaks., Loves Labour’s Lost, III. i. 63. Is that Lead slow which is fir’d from a Gunne?

1864.  MacDougall, Modern War., vii. 176. He paralysed one-half of his army by shutting it in behind the ravine, where it did not fire a shot. Ibid., xiii. 428. There is a tendency in the soldiers, difficult, or as some say impossible, to check, to fire away their ammunition in a reckless and aimless manner under the excitement of battle.

1885.  Times, 23 Jan., 9/2. A man who had never commanded a regiment or fired a shot in anger.

  b.  transf. To propel or discharge (a missile) as from a gun. Also absol. (cf. 13.)

1708.  Ockley, Saracens (1848), 143. The Persian archers firing on them all the while, and grievously harassing the Mussulmans.

1849.  Pitman’s Ghost, in Bards of the Tyne, 409 (Northumb. Gloss.).

1878.  A. M. Hamilton, Nervous Diseases, x. 270. A boy having fired a brick at her, which struck her in the small of the back.

1885.  Times, 4 Feb., 4/4. If you want something to eat, fire a stone through a window.

  c.  fig.; also, to fire off.

1850.  J. W. Croker, in Croker Papers (1884), III. xxvii. 214. He had a most effective style of firing off his joke.

1859.  Reade, Love me Little, I. i. 29. Her ardent aunt followed presently and fired many glowing phrases in at the [carriage] window.

1861.  Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxf., ii. (1889), 18. He either did not or would not notice the looks of recognition which Tom kept firing at him until he had taken his seat.

1873.  Argosy, XVI. 443. ‘That Miss Timmens is not worth her salt,’ fired Tod.

1888.  Bryce, Amer. Commw., III. cxi. 600. At present, however, the ‘full-dress debates’ in the Senate are apt to want life, the great set speeches being fired off rather with a view to their circulation in the country than to any immediate effect on the assembly.

  16.  U.S. slang. To turn (any one) out of a place; to eject or expel forcibly; to dismiss or discharge peremptorily; to reject (a picture sent in for exhibition). Frequently with out.

  It has been suggested that this sense is derived from 8, but this seems unlikely.

1885.  Milner (Dakota) Free Press, 25 April, 5/2. If … the practice is persisted in, then they [pupils] should be fired out.

1887.  Lisbon (Dakota) Star, 11 Feb., 4. Postmaster Breed says the next time such a thing occurs he will fire the offender bodily.

1889.  Pall Mall G., 29 April, 2/1. A Commissioner who should be discovered to have reported a subordinate unjustly would be fired from his high post.

1892.  The Nation (N.Y.), 15 Dec., LV. 447/2. Artists of genuine ability have found their canvases fired, while the pictures of the little inner circle, good, bad, or indifferent, seldom fail to secure the best places on the walls.