fight fire with fire

Idioms  

1. Combat an evil or negative circumstances by reacting in kind. For example, When the opposition began a smear campaign, we decided to fight fire with fire. Although ancient writers from Plato to Erasmus cautioned that one should not add fire to fire, this warning is not incorporated in the idiom, which was first recorded in Shakespeare's Coriolanus.

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Example Sentences

To counter such misuse, he says, authorities will need to fight fire with fire, developing AI models that detect crime by auditing users’ tax returns, for example.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 9, 2026

Far more important, however, the “between jobs” army began to fight fire with fire.

From Salon • Jul. 28, 2024

You have to be able to fight fire with fire.

From Seattle Times • Jan. 16, 2024

The FDA’s early success with Twitter shows the agency can fight fire with fire, said Dr. Dhruv Khullar, assistant professor of health policy and economics at Weill Cornell Medical College.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 13, 2023

The rest of her seemed unalive, like a pale wax model of my mother: the woman who could not fight fire with fire, even to save her children.

From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver