backfire

Wikipedia

English

Etymology

From back + fire.

Verb

backfire (third-person singular simple present backfires, present participle backfiring, simple past and past participle backfired)

1. (Of a gun or cannon) to fire in the opposite direction, for example due to an obstruction in the barrel.
2. To fail in a manner that brings down further misfortune.

   His attempt to make money by importing luxury cars horribly backfired when fuel prices tripled.

Translations

fail

Croatian: vratiti se (hr), obiti se o glavu (hr) Dutch: falen (nl) Finnish: epäonnistua (fi), kostautua (fi) French: se retourner contre (fr), avoir l'effet inverse (fr)

Italian: avere effetto contrario (it) Portuguese: sair pela culatra (pt) Spanish: salir el tiro por la culata (es), tener efecto retroactivo (es), tener contraefecto (es)

Noun

backfire (plural backfires)

1. (firefighting) Alternative spelling of back fire.

Anagrams

• fireback