fire-eater

• fire eater, fireeater

fire-eater (plural fire-eaters)

1. A performer who pretends to swallow fire.
2. (figuratively) A quarrelsome or belligerent person.
   • Burt L. Standish (Gilbert Patten)

     "But he is a regular fire eater!"
     "He's a bad man—a blamed bad man!" fluttered Danny Griswold.
     "That's right," nodded Lewis Little. "He really wants to fight with swords, I believe."

3. (US, historical) An extreme partisan for the South before the US Civil War.
   • 1988, James McPherson, Battle Cry for Freedom, Oxford, published 2003, page 103:

     Frustrated in their attempts to change the law, fire-eaters turned their efforts to breaking it.

• (performer): firebreather, fire-breather, fire breather

• fire-eating