Word.ws English Dictionary

lighting a fire under

lighting a fire under is the present participle of light a fire under.

Meaning of light a fire under

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.

Questions about lighting a fire under

What is lighting a fire under the present participle of?
Lighting a fire under is the present participle of light a fire under.

Words near lighting a fire under in the dictionary

  1. lighthouses
  2. lightie
  3. lighties
  4. lightin'
  5. lighting
  6. lighting a fire under
  7. lighting along
  8. lighting down
  9. lighting engineer
  10. lighting into
  11. lighting off

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lighting a fire under (page history and authors); 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.

Last updated:

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