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Fire Away!

Say on; say what you have to say. The allusion to firing a gun; as, You are primed up to the muzzle with something you want to say; fire away and discharge your thoughts.

“‘Foster, I have something I want you and Miss Caryll to understand.ʹ ‘Fire away lʹ exclaimed Foster.”—Watson: The Web of a Spider, chap. xv.

Fire away, Flanʹagan. A taunt to a boaster. A man threatening you, says he will do this, that, and the other; you reply, “Fire away, Flanagan.” Cromwell marched against a castle defended by Flanagan, who threatened to open his cannon on the Parliamentarians unless they withdrew. Cromwell wrote on the corner of the missive sent to him, “Fire away, Flanagan,” and the doughty champion took to his heels immediately.

 

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Fingered
Fingle-fangle (A)
Finished to the Finger-nail
Finny Tribe
Finsbury (London)
Fion
Fir-cone
Fir-tree (The)
Fire. (Anglo-Saxon, fyr; Greek, pur.)
Fire
Fire Away!
Fire First
Fire-balloon
Fire-brand
Fire-drake or Fire-dragon
Fire-eaters
Fire-new
Fire-ship
Fire Up (To)
Fire Worship
Fire and Sword