light a fire under
verbEtymology
Referring to a time when, if chimney sweeps were afraid to ascend a chimney, the fire would be lit under them in order to motivate them to climb to the top.
Definitions
To motivate or encourage (someone) to start sooner or move faster.
- Let me see if I can light a fire under the waiter to get our order sooner.
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for light a fire under. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA