add flame to the fire

present singular third person adds flame to the fire · participle present adding flame to the fire · participle past added flame to the fire · past added flame to the fire

1. nonstandardNonstandard form of add fuel to the fire and add fuel to the flame.

   "Besides, we'd figured to drink all night and leave town in the morning anyway." "You've most likely consumed your limit of spirits tonight," Roscoe chimed in. "Any more will just add flame to the fire."

   2008, Larry Brotherton, Uvalde: The Blood of Quanah Parker, Tate Publishing & Enterprises, →ISBN, page 119

   2 more examples

   "Sure, go ahead," he said with a smirk, propping one foot up on a box and leaning his elbow on one knee while he turned the baby blues on me for what he must have thought was a melting look. I was so angry I was sizzling. The only thing that look did was add flame to the fire.

   1985 February, Dawn Aldridge, A Song for Mandy, New American Library, →ISBN, page 98

   To add flame to the fire, the government decided that it would be feasible to fly certain planes at night, to combat the turbulence created by the sun heating the ground, which produced rising columns of warm air that could toss the small biplanes of the 1920s around violently, making long flights across deserts and plains exhausting for pilots who had to constantly fight unstable air.

   2026 March 7, Sthitapragta Chakraborty, “America Once Built Giant Arrows to Guide Pilots Across the Country, and Some Still Exist Today”, in Skip Boring, archived from the original on 24 Jul 2026