Fire-eater

noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A performer who pretends to swallow fire.
  2. 2
    Alternative form of fire-eater (“extreme partisan for the South before the US Civil War”). US, alt-of, alternative
  3. 3
    a performer who pretends to swallow fire wordnet
  4. 4
    A quarrelsome or belligerent person. figuratively

    ""But he is a regular fire eater!" "He's a bad man—a blamed bad man!" fluttered Danny Griswold. "That's right," nodded Lewis Little. "He really wants to fight with swords, I believe.""

  5. 5
    a belligerent grouch wordnet
Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    An extreme partisan for the South before the US Civil War. US, historical

    "Frustrated in their attempts to change the law, fire-eaters turned their efforts to breaking it."

  2. 7
    a member of a fire department who tries to extinguish fires wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
adventureradventuressbearbeastbeldambomber

Example

More examples

""But he is a regular fire eater!" "He's a bad man—a blamed bad man!" fluttered Danny Griswold. "That's right," nodded Lewis Little. "He really wants to fight with swords, I believe.""

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.