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Backfire   /bˈækfˌaɪr/   Listen
Backfire

verb
1.
Come back to the originator of an action with an undesired effect.  Synonyms: backlash, recoil.
2.
Emit a loud noise as a result of undergoing a backfire.
3.
Set a controlled fire to halt an advancing forest to prairie fire.
noun
1.
The backward escape of gases and unburned gunpowder after a gun is fired.  Synonym: blowback.
2.
A loud noise made by the explosion of fuel in the manifold or exhaust of an internal combustion engine.
3.
A fire that is set intentionally in order to slow an approaching forest fire or grassfire by clearing a burned area in its path.
4.
A miscalculation that recoils on its maker.  Synonym: boomerang.





WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University


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"Backfire" Quotes from Famous Books



... of the greater fuel economy of the diesel, and also because of the high specific gravity of fuel oil as compared to gasoline. Furthermore, these smaller tanks could be placed in more convenient locations. Not having a carburetor the engine could not backfire, further reducing the fire hazard. The exhaust note was lower because of the diesel's higher expansion ratio. The absence of an ignition system permitted the diesel to operate in the heaviest types of precipitation. Such conditions might cause the ignition system of a gasoline engine to ...
— The First Airplane Diesel Engine: Packard Model DR-980 of 1928 • Robert B. Meyer
... reason for bearing down hard on every form of genuine missionary work. It's the only thing that we Americans can do in Mexico with any hope of avoiding suspicion or of our presence being acceptable to the Mexicans in the long run. We've got to fight the backfire of our American commercialism, and the prejudice which is as real on the Texas side of the river as it is on the other; for if the Mexican thinks in terms of 'gringo,' the American of the Southwest is just as likely to think ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... the servants but the curse of the Indian Fakir. So with a sad smile he ordered his motor car and thought that he and his wife had better try the Railway refreshment rooms. When his chauffeur was going to start the engine Mr. Anderson expected that there would be a backfire and the chauffeur would have a dislocated wrist. But there was no accident. The engine started as smoothly as it had never done before. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson went to the Railway refreshment rooms. There they were informed that no tea was available. A dead rat had been found under one of the ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... or points to an enduring solution of his problem. Suppression, while very often justified and necessary in the flux of human relationship, always carries a social cost which must be liquidated, and also a backfire danger which must be insured against. The human being is born with no innate proclivity to crime or special kind of unpatriotism. Crime and treason are habit-activities, educated into man by environmental influences favorable to ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... of material tighter in his hand, mentally trying to shape an order that wouldn't backfire, as such orders seemed to in the childhood stories of magic he had learned. Finally his lips whispered the simplest order he could find. "Rumpelstilsken, ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey


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