fight fire with fire
fight fire with fire verb: to respond to an attack with a similar or identical counter-attack (e.g. to respond to gunfire with reciprocal gunfire).
Verb
fight fire with fire (third-person singular simple present fights fire with fire, present participle fighting fire with fire, simple past and past participle fought fire with fire)
- To respond to an attack with a similar or identical counter-attack (e.g. to respond to gunfire with reciprocal gunfire).
- Close enough but not too far / Maybe you know where you are / Fightin' fire with fire1983, Talking Heads, “Burning Down the House”, in Speaking in Tongues
- Fight fire with fire2010 July 27, Blizzard, quoting Firebat, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, v1.0, Blizzard Entertainment, Microsoft Windows
fight fire with fire meaning in Hindi, Urdu and Vietnamese
fight fire with fire in Hindi
- respond to an attack with a counter-attack
- विरोधपूर्ण तरीका इस्तेमाल करना virodhpūrṇ tarīkā istemāl karnā
fight fire with fire in Urdu
- respond to an attack with a counter-attack
- مخالفت مکمل طریقہ استعمال کرنا muxālifat mukamil tarīqā istemāl karnā
fight fire with fire in Vietnamese
- respond to an attack with a counter-attack
- lấy độc trị độc, dĩ độc trị độc
Forms of fight fire with fire
| third-person singular present | fights fire with fire |
|---|---|
| present participle | fighting fire with fire |
| past participle | fought fire with fire |
| past | fought fire with fire |
Origin of fight fire with fire
Either from the practice of starting back fires to prevent the uncontrolled spread of wildfires, or from gunfire which is fought by firing back at the enemy.
Questions about fight fire with fire
- What does fight fire with fire mean?
- Fight fire with fire means to respond to an attack with a similar or identical counter-attack (e.g. to respond to gunfire with reciprocal gunfire).
- What is fight fire with fire in Hindi?
- Fight fire with fire in Hindi is विरोधपूर्ण तरीका इस्तेमाल करना (virodhpūrṇ tarīkā istemāl karnā). See Fight fire with fire meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is fight fire with fire?
- Fight fire with fire is a verb.
- What is the past tense of fight fire with fire?
- The past tense of fight fire with fire is fought fire with fire.
Words near fight fire with fire in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: fight fire with fire (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-fight fire with fire.ogg.
Cite this entry: “fight fire with fire.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fight_fire_with_fire. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.