Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1670s, "juggler who appears to swallow fire as part of an act," from fire (n.) + eater. From 1804 as "person of irascible or recklessly defiant disposition;" especially in U.S. history in reference to vehement Southern partizans (1851). Perhaps due to the extended senses, fire-swallower began to be used for the original sense by 1883. Related: Fire-eating.
Wiktionary
alt. 1 A performer who pretends to swallow fire. 2 (context figuratively English) A quarrelsome or belligerent person. 3 (context US historical English) An extreme partisan for the South before the US Civil War. n. 1 A performer who pretends to swallow fire. 2 (context figuratively English) A quarrelsome or belligerent person. 3 (context US historical English) An extreme partisan for the South before the US Civil War.
WordNet
n. a member of a fire department who tries to extinguish fires [syn: fireman, firefighter, fire fighter]
a belligerent grouch [syn: hothead]
a performer who pretends to swallow fire [syn: fire-swallower]
Wikipedia
Fire-Eater may refer to:
- Fire eater, a performer who places flaming objects into their mouth and extinguishes them
- " Fire-Eaters", extreme pro-slavery politicians in the 19th-century United States
- "The Fire-Eater", an episode of Dragon Ball (anime)
- Fire-Eater (comics), a Marvel comics character
- Fire-Eater (film), a 1998 Finnish film
Fire-Eater is a 1998 Finnish film directed and written by Pirjo Honkasalo. It tells a story of two orphaned sisters who end up working in a travelling circus. The film received several international awards, including the Grand Jury prize at the American Film Institute International Film Festival in 1998.
Usage examples of "fire-eater".
Imagine it: Those rigid, shock-headed figures, with corpsy complexions and fish glass eyes, occupying one side of the table in the constrained attitudes and dead fixedness that distinguish all men that are born of wax, and this wrinkled, smoldering old fire-eater occupying the other side, mumbling her prayers and munching her sausages in the ghostly stillness and shadowy indistinctness of a winter twilight.
He is surely not one of those arrogant fire-eaters that usually do the arguing for the secesh more of a Hamlet, this one is, which is why the Tycoon is spending the time to save his soul from political perdition.
On the other hand, there were Republicans in that Body who sturdily met the bluster of the Southern Fire-eaters with frank and courageous words expressing their full convictions on the situation and their belief that Concessions could not be made and that Compromises were mere waste paper.
For that matter, Semmes' principal opponent in the November elections, Doroteo Arango, would probably prosecute the war with more vigor than Wilson had done: Arango was a young fire-eater if ever there was one.
Imagine it: Those rigid, shock-headed figures, with corpsy complexions and fish glass eyes, occupying one side of the table in the constrained attitudes and dead fixedness that distinquish all men that are born of wax, and this wrinkled, smoldering old fire-eater occupying the other side, mumbling her prayers and munching her sausages in the ghostly stillness and shadowy indistinctness of a winter twilight.
Kory-Kory was in ecstasies, and commenced a vehement harangue, which, so far as I understood it, implied that the result exactly agreed with his expectations, and which, moreover, was intended to convince me that it would be a perfectly useless undertaking, even for an army of fire-eaters, to offer battle to the irresistible heroes of our valley.
Two are left-wing trades union ists back-benchers, fire-eaters Robin Grey and Lochin Donald McLean.
Under the circumstances, with the city and port besiegedalbeit mildly sothe king dimwitted and most ill-reded, but a true, old-time fire-eater to suicidal extremes, I was afforded but three options, namely: to take you and your people aboard with me and mine and sail away, forfeiting the city and port and all to the Ard-Righ (whenever he got back to take it).
There he presided over an endless party, providing fire-eaters, wrestlers, tribal dancers, drag queens, and prostitutes for his guests, while dwarfs balancing silver platters loaded with cocaine on their heads patrolled the corridors to ensure all his proté.
You belong under a tent, along with the jugglers, the fire-eaters, and the bottlers of snake oil.
This was the theatre-in-the-round of western prosperity: a great, gobbling, yelling, laughing stage crowded with fat ladies and dwarfs, marionettes on strings, fire-eaters, strong men and lots of escapologists.