surefire
[shoo r-fahyuh r, shur-]
adjective
sure to work; foolproof: a surefire moneymaking scheme.
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Million-dollar hair? OK, sure — but what do you call the biggest numbers in existence?You’ve probably heard about the football player Troy Polamalu whose long locks are, as of today, insured for $1,000,000 dollars. The silly stunt is just the chance we need to talk big — bigger than a million. How big? Let’s see how big. A “million” is literally Latin for “a great thousand” (mille is “thousand,” -ion is “largeness” or “greatness.”) A “billion” is literally “two …
RELATED WORDS
Nearby words
- sure thing,
- sure-enough,
- sure-fire,
- sure-footed,
- sure-handed,
- surefooted,
- surely,
- surety,
- suretyship,
- surf
Origin of surefire
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019
Examples from the Web for sure-fire
sure-fire
adjective
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
surefire
also sure-fire, by 1864, American English, from sure + fire (v.). Originally of rifles.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper