Word.ws English Dictionary

pulling someone's chestnuts out of the fire

pulling someone's chestnuts out of the fire is the present participle and gerund of pull someone's chestnuts out of the fire.

Meaning of pull someone's chestnuts out of the fire

Verb

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

  1. Synonym of pull someone's bacon out of the fire (“rescue someone, especially at the last moment”).
    • By now, however, it's unlikely that even this faithful retainer can once more pull Bush's chestnuts out of the fire.2006 Oct. 9, Jacob Heilbrunn, "‘Work Hard, Study ... and Keep Out of Politics!’" (book review), New York Times (retrieved 23 Oct 2011)
  2. To do another person's difficult work.

Questions about pulling someone's chestnuts out of the fire

What is pulling someone's chestnuts out of the fire the present participle and gerund of?
Pulling someone's chestnuts out of the fire is the present participle and gerund of pull someone's chestnuts out of the fire.

Words near pulling someone's chestnuts out of the fire in the dictionary

  1. pulling short
  2. pulling short up
  3. pulling someone down a peg
  4. pulling someone over the coals
  5. pulling someone's bacon out of the fire
  6. pulling someone's chestnuts out of the fire
  7. pulling someone's fat out of the fire
  8. pulling someone's leg
  9. pulling someone's plonker
  10. pulling someone's plumes
  11. pulling strings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pulling someone's chestnuts out of the fire (page history and authors); pull someone's chestnuts 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: “pulling someone's chestnuts out of the fire.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pulling_someone%27s_chestnuts_out_of_the_fire. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.