fire off

Idioms  

1. Say or write and send away rapidly, as in He fired off three more questions, or She fired off a letter of complaint to the president. This expression originally (from about 1700) was, and still is, used in the sense of “discharge a weapon or ammunition,” as in The police were instructed to fire off canisters of tear gas. The figurative use dates from the late 1800s.

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Example Sentences

An exercise to fire off a howitzer, an artillery weapon, was called off due to an extreme blizzard in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.

From BBC • Apr. 12, 2026

But he did fire off a post accusing the British government of seeking "any excuse" for censorship.

From BBC • Jan. 12, 2026

The BOT can fire off more rate cuts, but it is running out of ammunition.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 10, 2025

Jerry Stiller was protective of his son’s showbiz ambitions, so much so that if a critic gave Ben a bad review, Jerry would sit down and fire off a letter.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 18, 2025

He was initially stymied by the essays, which he tried to fire off as irreverent, impulsive e-mail messages.

From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz