Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A quick-tempered or highly excitable person.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An irascible or passionate person; one whose temper is hot or fiery.
Wiktionary
- n. A person with a fiery temper, someone easily provoked to anger.
- n. obsolete A spirited young woman.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. colloq. A violent, irascible, or passionate person.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a highly emotional and quick-tempered person (especially a girl or woman)
Etymologies
- A compound of spit + fire as a euphemistic rendition of shitfire, from Spanish cacafuego ("braggart") with the literal translation of "fireshitter". (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Through a review of Army reports and the memories of a fellow POW tracked down in New Jersey, The Associated Press was able to reconstruct the conditions under which the young man — called a "spitfire" and the "life of the party" — starved to death in a prisoner of war camp.”
“You know, Elizabeth Edwards has been described as a spitfire, highly educated.”
“Truth and honesty: Betty was known as a spitfire from her first breath.”
“Reading that word in a book drives me completely bat-f*ck crazy since I'm reading Corambis I'm going to channel one of the characters - Mildmay : I was chatting about this with my best friend, the lovely Starfire, and for her the 'hit the wall' word is 'spitfire'.”
“These came from the direction of Mafeking, that place having proved too much a "spitfire" for their liking.”
“We still call a hasty person a "spitfire", and a calumniator”
“Skillman, NJ, is a real "spitfire," according to her parents, and is super outgoing.”
Gap Unveils 2010 Casting Call Winners in babyGap and GapKids Stores Nationwide - Yahoo! Finance
“The Aviation Heritage Museum, Australia began with the exhibition of the historical 'spitfire', and after a few years it was followed by the 'Lancaster bomber', which was associated with the Second World War.”
WN.com - Articles related to Australia mining firm strikes gold in RP
“Now she's proud her "spitfire" blond boy took on a fighting spirit, even if it means he challenges the nurses who try to keep him alive.”
“spitfire', and after a few years it was followed by the 'Lancaster bomber', which was associated with the Second World War.”
WN.com - Articles related to Australia mining firm strikes gold in RP
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘spitfire’.
-
Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
-
Gapeseeds and Muckworms - Compound De...
A list of compound derogatory names such as gapeseed, muckworm and lickspittle. Your one-word contributions to this list are welcome.
See sionnach's list derogatory terms I should use ...gapeseed, muckworm, lickspittle, makeweight, bootlicker, backscratcher, apple-polisher, backslapper, brownnoser, rakeshame, yesman, freeloader and 293 more...
-
The Pits
armpit, pit, pits, cockpit, pity, pithy, pit bull terrier, pit boss, pit stop, pitcher, fire pit, peach pit and 76 more...
-
Fire when ready
Words and phrases containing fire.
fire ant, crossfire, fire and brimstone, spitfire, firepower, fireflower, firetower, firetrap, brushfire, fireworks, fire storm, fight fire with fire and 84 more...
-
Hot Bodies
Hot and fiery words associated with the human body and spirit. I added furfuration only because it needed some attention.
splenitive, spitfire, hot-livered, fire-eating, hot-headed, hot-tempered, hot-spirited, full-hot, ignipotent, hotbrain, hothead, fire-eyed and 8 more...
-
the indelible ink of personality
nefarious, mischievious, bawdy, intense, blunt, steadfast, succulent, edible, nature, creature, truth, touch and 28 more...
-
work these into conversation
Challenge!
legerdemain, polysemic, rupestrian, callipygian, oscitancy, numen, lucubration, asperity, amalgam, apposite, wastrel, eleemosynary and 208 more...
-
Junk
walrus, fascination, broadway, fickle, downturn, bridge, gargle, rotunda, mesh, fab, shortlife, strumming and 304 more...
-
Time for a new list!
abrupt, erupt, rupture, sync, appropinquity, heterochromia, homochromatic, monochromatic, willy nilly, nitty gritty, kowtow, wonton and 455 more...
-
madamepsychosis's Words
mollify, salubrious, prandial, coup de grace, ineluctable, metempsychosis, pedant, conatus, oeuvre, laconic, solipsism, vapid and 265 more...
-
Face Place ㋡
Facial expressions, methods for determining emotional states, and general terms for passionate emotional states.
I've put specific-emotion words in these other lists of mine:
Hap...perfervid, vehement, demonstrative, fervent, torrid, frantic, agog, choler, moue, histrionic, dacrygelosis, verklempt and 92 more...
-
Ships
All of which are mentioned in O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels, someplace or other. Most are British navy ships, some are French navy, and others aren't either one.
See also the list Sh...franklin, surprise, agamemnon, vanguard, truelove, minerva, diane, victory, sophie, cacafuego, euryalus, alastor and 382 more...
-
Negasonic Teenage Warhead
"Wow, we really have run out of names."
Codenames of superheroes, supervillains, etc. (that are actual words, or unique spellings of actual words).rogue, gambit, wolverine, storm, cyclops, phoenix, cypher, beast, berzerker, toad, avalanche, magma and 125 more...
-
S is for Sweater Puppy
My S Words
secret agent, sweater puppy, skivvies, soda jerk, surly, space madness, sad sack, sadsack, scoundrel, scrabble, shaken teddy bear..., saucy and 181 more...
-
wurds i lyke
bombastic, bon mot, spitfire, portmanteau, occlude, chimera, smitten, enigma, tete-a-tete, assignation, punk-ass, bourgeoisie and 29 more...
-
quite a handful.
this girl has fire.
firebrand, spitfire, firecracker, rebel, insurrectionist, zealot, maverick, misfit, dreamer, agitator, instigator, inciter and 27 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for spitfire.
dailyword A Yankee deserter called Scarlett this when he came back to raid the house. Oct 29, 2012
chained_bear The H.M.S. Spitfire was listed as a "vessel belonging to the army" (British army), captured at Yorktown in 1781.
Also the name of a pretty cool fighter plane during World War II. Oct 29, 2007
brandonpepin 1: A cleaning product used at job corps. Smells like shit.
2: The coolest person ever to grace the earth. Dec 7, 2006