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fight fire with fire
Idioms and Phrases
Combat an evil or negative circumstances by reacting in kind. For example, When the opposition began a smear campaign, we decided to fight fire with fire . Although ancient writers from Plato to Erasmus cautioned that one should not add fire to fire, this warning is not incorporated in the idiom, which was first recorded in Shakespeare's Coriolanus .Example Sentences
So how to fight fire with fire?
Far more important, however, the “between jobs” army began to fight fire with fire.
In a podcast interview, Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., said, “We have to fight fire with fire.”
In a campaign video last August, he called on Republican attorneys general and district attorneys to “closely” watch the trials against him: “It’s an eye for an eye, or it’s fight fire with fire.”
You have to be able to fight fire with fire.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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