See fight fire with fire in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "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.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "fights fire with fire",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "fighting fire with fire",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "fought fire with fire",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "fought fire with fire",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
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{
"args": {
"1": "fight<,,fought> fire with fire"
},
"expansion": "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)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
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"examples": [
{
"ref": "1983, Talking Heads (lyrics and music), “Burning Down the House”, in Speaking in Tongues:",
"text": "Close enough but not too far / Maybe you know where you are / Fightin' fire with fire",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2010 July 27, Blizzard, quoting Firebat, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, v1.0, Blizzard Entertainment, Microsoft Windows:",
"text": "Fight fire with fire",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To respond to an attack with a similar or identical counter-attack (e.g. to respond to gunfire with reciprocal gunfire)."
],
"id": "en-fight_fire_with_fire-en-verb-7CeiYnsy",
"links": [
[
"identical",
"identical"
],
[
"counter-attack",
"counter-attack"
],
[
"gunfire",
"gunfire"
],
[
"reciprocal",
"reciprocal"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To respond to an attack with a similar or identical counter-attack (e.g. to respond to gunfire with reciprocal gunfire)."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "bring a knife to a gunfight"
},
{
"word": "eye for an eye"
},
{
"word": "set a thief to catch a thief"
},
{
"word": "take a hair of the dog that bit one"
},
{
"word": "use a sledgehammer to crack a nut"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "am",
"lang": "Amharic",
"roman": "ʾəsat gar ʾəsat lämäwagat",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "እሳት ጋር እሳት ለመዋጋት"
},
{
"code": "bg",
"lang": "Bulgarian",
"roman": "klin klin izbíva",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "клин клин изби́ва"
},
{
"code": "ca",
"lang": "Catalan",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "combatre el foc amb foc"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "yǐhuǒgōnghuǒ",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "以火攻火"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "yǐdúgōngdú",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "以毒攻毒"
},
{
"code": "da",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "bekæmpe ild med ild"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "vuur met vuur bestrijden"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "panna kova kovaa vastaan"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "taistella tulella tulta vastaan"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "combattre le mal par le mal"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "combattre le feu par le feu"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "Feuer mit Feuer bekämpfen"
},
{
"code": "hi",
"lang": "Hindi",
"roman": "virodhpūrṇ tarīkā istemāl karnā",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "विरोधपूर्ण तरीका इस्तेमाल करना"
},
{
"code": "is",
"lang": "Icelandic",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "berjast eld með eldi"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "combattere alla pari"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "combattere ad armi pari"
},
{
"code": "no",
"lang": "Norwegian",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "bekjempe ild med ild"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "combater fogo com fogo"
},
{
"code": "ro",
"lang": "Romanian",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "a scoate cuiul cu cui"
},
{
"code": "ro",
"lang": "Romanian",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "a răspunde la foc cu foc"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"note": "клин кли́ном вышиба́ют (klin klínom vyšibájut, literally “remove a wedge with a wedge”)",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack"
},
{
"code": "sh",
"lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"tags": [
"Cyrillic"
],
"word": "кли̏н се кли̏ном ѝзбӣја̄"
},
{
"code": "sh",
"lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"tags": [
"Roman"
],
"word": "klȉn se klȉnom ìzbījā"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "combatir el fuego con fuego"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "ont skall med ont fördrivas"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "sätta hårt mot hårt"
},
{
"code": "tr",
"lang": "Turkish",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "ateşe ateşle karşılık vermek"
},
{
"code": "ur",
"lang": "Urdu",
"roman": "muxālifat mukamil tarīqā istemāl karnā",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "مخالفت مکمل طریقہ استعمال کرنا"
},
{
"code": "vi",
"lang": "Vietnamese",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "lấy độc trị độc"
},
{
"code": "vi",
"lang": "Vietnamese",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "dĩ độc trị độc"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-fight fire with fire.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/ac/En-au-fight_fire_with_fire.ogg/En-au-fight_fire_with_fire.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/En-au-fight_fire_with_fire.ogg"
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],
"word": "fight fire with fire"
}
{
"etymology_text": "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.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "fights fire with fire",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "fighting fire with fire",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "fought fire with fire",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "fought fire with fire",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
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"1": "fight<,,fought> fire with fire"
},
"expansion": "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)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"word": "bring a knife to a gunfight"
},
{
"word": "eye for an eye"
},
{
"word": "set a thief to catch a thief"
},
{
"word": "take a hair of the dog that bit one"
},
{
"word": "use a sledgehammer to crack a nut"
}
],
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{
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"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English reduplications",
"English terms with quotations",
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"Mandarin terms with redundant transliterations",
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"Terms with Catalan translations",
"Terms with Danish translations",
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"Terms with Finnish translations",
"Terms with French translations",
"Terms with German translations",
"Terms with Hindi translations",
"Terms with Icelandic translations",
"Terms with Italian translations",
"Terms with Mandarin translations",
"Terms with Norwegian translations",
"Terms with Portuguese translations",
"Terms with Romanian translations",
"Terms with Russian translations",
"Terms with Serbo-Croatian translations",
"Terms with Spanish translations",
"Terms with Swedish translations",
"Terms with Turkish translations",
"Terms with Urdu translations",
"Terms with Vietnamese translations",
"Urdu terms with redundant script codes"
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"examples": [
{
"ref": "1983, Talking Heads (lyrics and music), “Burning Down the House”, in Speaking in Tongues:",
"text": "Close enough but not too far / Maybe you know where you are / Fightin' fire with fire",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2010 July 27, Blizzard, quoting Firebat, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, v1.0, Blizzard Entertainment, Microsoft Windows:",
"text": "Fight fire with fire",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To respond to an attack with a similar or identical counter-attack (e.g. to respond to gunfire with reciprocal gunfire)."
],
"links": [
[
"identical",
"identical"
],
[
"counter-attack",
"counter-attack"
],
[
"gunfire",
"gunfire"
],
[
"reciprocal",
"reciprocal"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To respond to an attack with a similar or identical counter-attack (e.g. to respond to gunfire with reciprocal gunfire)."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
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"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/En-au-fight_fire_with_fire.ogg"
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"translations": [
{
"code": "am",
"lang": "Amharic",
"roman": "ʾəsat gar ʾəsat lämäwagat",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "እሳት ጋር እሳት ለመዋጋት"
},
{
"code": "bg",
"lang": "Bulgarian",
"roman": "klin klin izbíva",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "клин клин изби́ва"
},
{
"code": "ca",
"lang": "Catalan",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "combatre el foc amb foc"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "yǐhuǒgōnghuǒ",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "以火攻火"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "yǐdúgōngdú",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "以毒攻毒"
},
{
"code": "da",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "bekæmpe ild med ild"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "vuur met vuur bestrijden"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "panna kova kovaa vastaan"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "taistella tulella tulta vastaan"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "combattre le mal par le mal"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "combattre le feu par le feu"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "Feuer mit Feuer bekämpfen"
},
{
"code": "hi",
"lang": "Hindi",
"roman": "virodhpūrṇ tarīkā istemāl karnā",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "विरोधपूर्ण तरीका इस्तेमाल करना"
},
{
"code": "is",
"lang": "Icelandic",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "berjast eld með eldi"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "combattere alla pari"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "combattere ad armi pari"
},
{
"code": "no",
"lang": "Norwegian",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "bekjempe ild med ild"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "combater fogo com fogo"
},
{
"code": "ro",
"lang": "Romanian",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "a scoate cuiul cu cui"
},
{
"code": "ro",
"lang": "Romanian",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "a răspunde la foc cu foc"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"note": "клин кли́ном вышиба́ют (klin klínom vyšibájut, literally “remove a wedge with a wedge”)",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack"
},
{
"code": "sh",
"lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"tags": [
"Cyrillic"
],
"word": "кли̏н се кли̏ном ѝзбӣја̄"
},
{
"code": "sh",
"lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"tags": [
"Roman"
],
"word": "klȉn se klȉnom ìzbījā"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "combatir el fuego con fuego"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "ont skall med ont fördrivas"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "sätta hårt mot hårt"
},
{
"code": "tr",
"lang": "Turkish",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "ateşe ateşle karşılık vermek"
},
{
"code": "ur",
"lang": "Urdu",
"roman": "muxālifat mukamil tarīqā istemāl karnā",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "مخالفت مکمل طریقہ استعمال کرنا"
},
{
"code": "vi",
"lang": "Vietnamese",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "lấy độc trị độc"
},
{
"code": "vi",
"lang": "Vietnamese",
"sense": "respond to an attack with a counter-attack",
"word": "dĩ độc trị độc"
}
],
"word": "fight fire with fire"
}
Download raw JSONL data for fight fire with fire meaning in English (7.7kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-21 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (d8cb2f3 and 4e554ae). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.