Word.ws English Dictionary

light a fire under

light a fire under verb: to motivate or encourage (someone) to start sooner or move faster.

Verb

light a fire under (third-person singular simple present lights a fire under, present participle lighting a fire under, simple past and past participle lit a fire under)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To motivate or encourage (someone) to start sooner or move faster.
    • Let me see if I can light a fire under the waiter to get our order sooner.

Forms of light a fire under

third-person singular presentlights a fire under
present participlelighting a fire under
past participlelit a fire under
pastlit a fire under

Origin of light a fire under

Referring to a time when, if chimney sweeps were afraid to ascend a chimney, the fire would be lit under them in order to motivate them to climb to the top.

Questions about light a fire under

What does light a fire under mean?
Light a fire under means to motivate or encourage (someone) to start sooner or move faster.
What part of speech is light a fire under?
Light a fire under is a verb.
What is the past tense of light a fire under?
The past tense of light a fire under is lit a fire under.

Words near light a fire under in the dictionary

  1. liggers
  2. Liggett
  3. Liggetts
  4. ligging
  5. light
  6. light a fire under
  7. light academia
  8. light aeon
  9. light aeons
  10. light air
  11. light airs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: light a fire under (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-light a fire under.ogg.

Cite this entry: “light a fire under.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/light_a_fire_under. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.