play with fire
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To take a risk that could have dangerous consequences
Literally: manipulate flames
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
She was playing with fire, in Lydia's opinion.
Why, almost right from the start she'd known she was playing with fire, and the rest of the cliché was proving to be disastrously right.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
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 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “play with fire” mean?
To take a risk that could have dangerous consequences Literally: manipulate flames
Is “play with fire” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.