First recorded in 1830–40
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Her parents made sure she knew how to use a fire extinguisher, which was very heavy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 13, 2026
Among their finds is a fire extinguisher dating from 1942, newspapers from the week after D-Day, and a tin of "whole chicken in jelly" - fortunately empty.
From BBC ● May 4, 2026
Another sprayed a fire extinguisher, sending up a white cloud.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 13, 2026
This is like a fire extinguisher that requires a 48-hour waiting period.
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 5, 2025
When I’d blasted it with water from the fire extinguisher, the burning plastic had simply scattered and the fire spread, and for a moment I’d been terrified—the service area was full of old wood.
From "Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing" by Ted Conover
Before she started training to be a matador, she had worked in a beauty parlor and then as a typist at a fire-extinguisher factory, and both jobs drove her crazy.
From Slate ● Mar. 29, 2014
One of them, Fred Sullivan, has lifted his Walter Kidde Co. from a burglar-alarm and fire-extinguisher manufacturer with $40 million in sales five years ago to a $350 million conglomerate.
From Time Magazine Archive
He had ransacked the premises for every hand fire-extinguisher he could find, had brought them to the burning buildings and, with fine optimism, was now spraying their contents on the edges of the blaze.
From The Monk of Hambleton by Livingston, Armstrong
The cutting contempt of Mrs. James W. Colton's remark was fire-extinguisher sufficient for that night.
From The Rise of Roscoe Paine by Lincoln, Joseph Crosby
In the house, Miss Ingate was coming slowly down the stairs, a fire-extinguisher in her arms, like a red baby.
From The Lion's Share by Bennett, Arnold
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
