Word.ws English Dictionary

pull the fat out of the fire

pull the fat out of the fire is the alternative form of pull out of the fire.

Meaning of pull out of the fire

Verb

pull out of the fire (third-person singular simple present pulls out of the fire, present participle pulling out of the fire, simple past and past participle pulled out of the fire)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To save from impending failure, destruction, or defeat.
    • But there was another, keener reason why Pitcher Alexander wanted to pull this game out of the fire, which he proceeded to do by holding Philadelphia scoreless for four innings while his St. Louis clubmates made three more runs.1929 August 19, “Sport: Alexander the Great”, in Time
    Synonyms:
    redeem, rescue, save

Forms of pull the fat out of the fire

third-person singular presentpulls the fat out of the fire
present participlepulling the fat out of the fire
past participlepulled the fat out of the fire
pastpulled the fat out of the fire

Questions about pull the fat out of the fire

What is pull the fat out of the fire the alternative form of?
Pull the fat out of the fire is the alternative form of pull out of the fire.

Words near pull the fat out of the fire in the dictionary

  1. pull station
  2. pull stations
  3. pull strings
  4. pull teeth
  5. pull the devil by the tail
  6. pull the fat out of the fire
  7. pull the fire alarm
  8. pull the football
  9. pull the ladder up after oneself
  10. pull the ladder up behind oneself
  11. pull the long bow

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pull the fat out of the fire (page history and authors); pull out of the 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:

Cite this entry: “pull the fat out of the fire.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pull_the_fat_out_of_the_fire. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.