Meaning
To counter an attack or aggressive tactic by using the same methods against the person employing them. It can be approving, of robust self-defence, or disapproving, of needless escalation, and context decides which reading applies. Neutral; often half-admiring and half-warning, since the tactic risks harming the user as much as the target. Regional use: General English (19th-century American firefighting origin).
Origin
The image comes from literal firefighting on the 19th-century American frontier: setters and trappers deliberately set small 'back-fires' to burn off grass and brush before a wildfire arrived, robbing it of fuel. The practice, and its occasional failures, are described in Caroline Kirkland's Michigan frontier novel A New Home - Who'll Follow?, in which neighbours decide there is 'nothing now but to make a back-fire'. The earliest known citation of the phrase itself is Henry Tappan's travel book A Step from the New World to the Old, and Back Again (1852): 'as the trappers on the prairies fight fire with fire, so I fought tobacco with tobacco', already figurative. Shakespeare had anticipated the idea, not the wording, in King John (around 1595): 'be fire with fire; threaten the threatener'.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- fighting fire with fire
- fire against fire
- meet fire with fire
Usage Examples
- The campaign decided to fight fire with fire and answered every attack ad within the hour.
- Fighting fire with fire feels satisfying, but replying to his angry messages in kind only doubled the paperwork.
- Negotiators warned that fighting fire with fire in the trade dispute would raise prices on both sides of the border.