fire-eater

1. A performer who pretends to swallow fire.
2. A belligerent person or a militant partisan.

An outspoken group of Southern, proslavery extremists, the Fire-Eaters advocated secession from the Union and the formation of an independent confederacy as early as the 1840s. The group included a number of well-known champions of Southern sovereignty, including South Carolina newspaper editor Robert Barnwell Rhett, Virginia planter Edmund Ruffin, and William Lowndes Yancey, a radical Democrat from Alabama. Although Rhett, Ruffin, Yancey, and other Fire-Eaters were the chief spokesmen for confederacy, many moderate southerners who supported secession continued to distrust them and they seldom acquired responsible positions within the Confederate government.

Bibliography

Allmendinger, David F. Ruffin: Family and Reform in the Old South. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Dew, Charles B. Apostles of Disunion. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001.

Ford, Lacy K. Origins of Southern Radicalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

—Wendell H. Stephenson/E. M.

The noun has 3 meanings:

Meaning #1: a member of a fire department who tries to extinguish fires
  Synonyms: fireman, firefighter, fire fighter

Meaning #2: a belligerent grouch
  Synonym: hothead

Meaning #3: a performer who pretends to swallow fire
  Synonym: fire-swallower

Dansk (Danish)
n. - ildsluger, chauvinist, krigsgal person

Nederlands (Dutch)
vuurvreter, woest persoon, vechter

Français (French)
n. - cracheur de feu

Deutsch (German)
n. - Feuerschlucker, streitsüchtige Person

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - πυροφάγος, ταραξίας

Italiano (Italian)
mangiafuoco

Português (Portuguese)
n. - engolidor (m) de fogo

Русский (Russian)
пожиратель огня, драчун, пламенный оратор

Español (Spanish)
n. - tragafuegos, matamoros

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - eldslukare, bråkmakare (vard.)

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
玩吞火把戏的人

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 玩吞火把戲的人

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 용감한 사람

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 火食い奇術師, 消防士

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) آكل النار , مشعوذ يلتهم النار‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮בולע אש, שש לריב, רגזן‬

If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here.

To select your translation preferences click here.