fire in the hole
6
8.9
- idiom
- Jargon
:
¡fuego en el agujero!
- Fire in the hole.
- fire in the hole! Get
Examples
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"Fire in the hole," Monty called.
Fiction book (1993) -
Fire in the hole.
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- Fire in the hole!
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Fire in the hole!... hopefully.
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Finnegan, fire in the hole!
Fiction book (1998) -
Fire in the hole!
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FIRE IN THE HOLE!
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As the team prepared for the demolition, one member shouted, "Fire in the hole!" signaling everyone to take cover.
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Before the explosives were set off, the crew leader called out, "Fire in the hole!" to warn his team.
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In the midst of the operation, the miner yelled, "Fire in the hole!" just before the blast shook the ground.
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The literal combination of 'fire' + 'in' + 'hole' conveys a hazardous event in an enclosed space, so learners can partly infer danger from the constituents. However, the phrase is a conventionalized spoken warning used specifically before detonations (military/mining), and its fixed pragmatic function (shouting a caution) is not fully predictable from the words alone, so full understanding likely requires prior exposure.
Etymology
Fire in the hole comes from miners and soldiers who would shout when they put explosives into a hole and lit them, because seeing fire in a hole meant an explosion was about to happen. That's why today people use it as a quick 'warning' that something sudden or dangerous is coming.