English · Word Candidate

backfire

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

To have the opposite effect of what was intended

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

có tác dụng ngược lại với dự định

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: a gun firing backwards

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

The company's attempt to spin the scandal backfired and made things worse

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “backfire” mean?

To have the opposite effect of what was intended Literally: a gun firing backwards

Is “backfire” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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