English · Idiom Historical

between two fires

Preserved but no longer current.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Between two dangers. Troops caught between fire from opposite sides.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Giữa hai mối nguy hiểm. Quân đội bị mắc kẹt giữa hai phía bắn.

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)

Sources & notes

Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.

Topics: Fire Historical slang (1800s)

Common questions

What does “between two fires” mean?

Between two dangers. Troops caught between fire from opposite sides.

Is “between two fires” formal or informal?

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

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