"spitfire" meaning in English

See spitfire in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-spitfire.wav [Southern-England] Forms: spitfires [plural]
Etymology: Etymology tree English spit firedeverb. English spitfire Deverbal from spit fire. Etymology templates: {{ety|en|:deverbal|spit fire|text=+|tree=1}} Etymology tree English spit firedeverb. English spitfire [Appendix:Glossary#deverbal|Deverbal]] from", "terms" : [ { "children" : [ ], "lang_name" : "English", "term" : "spit fire", "status" : "missing", "lang" : "en" } ], "keyword" : "deverbal" } ], "lang_name" : "English", "term" : "spitfire", "status" : "ok", "lang" : "en" }" data-lang="en" data-title="spitfire"> Deverbal from spit fire. Head templates: {{en-noun}} spitfire (plural spitfires)
  1. A cannon.
    Sense id: en-spitfire-en-noun-wPWFqd7f Categories (other): Artillery Disambiguation of Artillery: 33 33 33
  2. A person with a fiery temper, someone easily provoked to anger, especially a woman or girl.
    Sense id: en-spitfire-en-noun-vNk6V5BT Categories (other): English deverbals, English entries referencing missing etymons, English entries with etymology texts, English entries with etymology trees, English entries with incorrect language header, English exocentric verb-noun compounds, Pages using etymon with no ID, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Pages with etymology trees, Artillery Disambiguation of English deverbals: 8 44 49 Disambiguation of English entries referencing missing etymons: 6 45 49 Disambiguation of English entries with etymology texts: 6 53 41 Disambiguation of English entries with etymology trees: 6 53 41 Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 2 46 51 Disambiguation of English exocentric verb-noun compounds: 15 57 28 Disambiguation of Pages using etymon with no ID: 4 57 39 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 3 49 48 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 2 54 43 Disambiguation of Pages with etymology trees: 3 71 26 Disambiguation of Artillery: 33 33 33
  3. A larva of the spitfire sawfly, Perga affinis.
    Sense id: en-spitfire-en-noun-7ZdAx45C Categories (other): English deverbals, English entries referencing missing etymons, English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Artillery Disambiguation of English deverbals: 8 44 49 Disambiguation of English entries referencing missing etymons: 6 45 49 Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 2 46 51 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 3 49 48 Disambiguation of Artillery: 33 33 33
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Related terms: shitfire
Categories (other): People Disambiguation of People: 0 0 0

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

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          "ref": "1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London:",
          "text": "The young imp had been prepared for immediate flight the instant anyone appeared, but for some reason Won Chou's not very aggressive behest must have conveyed a peculiarly galling insult for its effect was to transform the wary gamin into a bristling little spitfire, who hurled back the accumulated scandal of the quarter.",
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Download raw JSONL data for spitfire meaning in English (3.1kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-06-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-06-01 using wiktextract (03da280 and 7f4db16). 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.