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
Another sprayed a fire extinguisher, sending up a white cloud.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 13, 2026
One man tried to tackle the fire at the shop with a small fire extinguisher but had to abandon the attempt after a series of explosions.
From BBC ● Mar. 13, 2026
Standing repo facility usage: The SRF is supposed to be a backstop nobody needs, like the fire extinguisher in your kitchen.
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 5, 2025
Saline, on U-and-Z, had seen smoke billowing out of a cell and, unsure if there was anyone inside, had pulled his pin on his way to the fire extinguisher.
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
I might raffle 'em off, only nobody'd be likely to buy chances on a fire-extinguisher.
From Kilo : being the love story of Eliph' Hewlitt, book agent by Butler, Ellis Parker
Every one of those dots is simply a little hole in the wall through which, in case of fire, will flow quart after quart of my chemical fire-extinguisher?
From Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures by Franklin, Edgar, [pseud.]
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.
