backfire

«backfire» in Mova's school dictionary: If a plan backfires, it goes wrong and has the opposite… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

verb (backfire, backfires, backfired, backfiring); noun (a backfire, backfires)

meaning for a pupil

1) If a plan backfires, it goes wrong and has the opposite result to what you wanted, often hurting you instead. tree →

2) If a car or engine backfires, it makes a sudden loud bang because fuel explodes in the wrong place. tree →

sense in the lessons

In stories and everyday life, tricks and lies often backfire on the person who did them — a common lesson in fables. In science, a backfire in an old car or motorbike is a loud bang, sometimes mistaken for a gunshot. Phrases: «backfire on someone», «the plan backfired».

examples

• His plan to scare his sister backfired when he got scared. tree →
• The joke backfired, and nobody laughed. tree →
• Lying to your parents can backfire. tree →
• The old car backfired with a loud bang. tree →
• Her trick backfired on her. tree →
• Skipping lunch backfired — I felt sick in the afternoon. tree →
• The fox's clever plan backfired in the end. tree →
• The motorbike backfired and the birds flew off. tree →

note

One word. Pattern: «backfire on someone». It is mostly a verb about plans; it does not mean a fire starting again. A firefighter's «backfire» (a planned fire to stop a wildfire) is a special meaning.

In the corpora

• Playing one parent against the other to get treats usually causes more rows and backfires.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «backfire» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.