Chinese fire drill
Chinese fire drill noun: a prank performed while stopped in a car at a red light, and where each passenger, including the driver, shouts "Chinese fire drill", exits the vehicle, runs at least once around it, then re-enters, each taking a different seat.
Noun
Chinese fire drill (plural Chinese fire drills)
- A prank performed while stopped in a car at a red light, and where each passenger, including the driver, shouts "Chinese fire drill", exits the vehicle, runs at least once around it, then re-enters, each taking a different seat.
- A silly, pointless exercise.
- Synonyms:
- fire drill, Polish fire drill
Synonyms of Chinese fire drill
Forms of Chinese fire drill
| plural | Chinese fire drills |
|---|
Origin of Chinese fire drill
Perhaps from the World War I era, from the former Western use of Chinese as an ethnic and racial slur; now used only as a festive exclamation.
Questions about Chinese fire drill
- What does Chinese fire drill mean?
- Chinese fire drill means a prank performed while stopped in a car at a red light, and where each passenger, including the driver, shouts "Chinese fire drill", exits the vehicle, runs at least once around it, then re-enters, each taking a different seat.
- What part of speech is Chinese fire drill?
- Chinese fire drill is a noun.
- What is the plural of Chinese fire drill?
- The plural of Chinese fire drill is Chinese fire drills.
Words near Chinese fire drill in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Chinese fire drill (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “Chinese fire drill.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chinese_fire_drill. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.