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# 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 →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/B/backfire/#m1)

2) If a car or engine backfires, it makes a sudden loud bang because fuel explodes in the wrong place. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/B/backfire/#m2)

### 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 →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/B/backfire/#x1)
- The joke backfired, and nobody laughed. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/B/backfire/#x2)
- Lying to your parents can backfire. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/B/backfire/#x3)
- The old car backfired with a loud bang. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/B/backfire/#x4)
- Her trick backfired on her. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/B/backfire/#x5)
- Skipping lunch backfired — I felt sick in the afternoon. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/B/backfire/#x6)
- The fox's clever plan backfired in the end. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/B/backfire/#x7)
- The motorbike backfired and the birds flew off. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/B/backfire/#x8)

### 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.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/496-parents-who-row-and-one-kind-and-one-not/37/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «backfire» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/B/backfire/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.