adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective

1. 1
   Guaranteed to work or happen.

   "That hat should be a sure-fire way to spot him in a crowd."

Adjective

1. 1
   certain to be successful wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

foolproofsure

Example

More examples

"Appealing to the lowest common denominator is a sure-fire way to get sales or votes."

Etymology

From sure + fire, originally used to denote the efficacy of firearms (rifles) to fire.

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