fire drill
English
Pronunciation
Audio (AU) (file)
Noun
fire drill (plural fire drills)
- An organized practice to prepare occupants of an office, school or other public building for evacuation in the event of a fire.
- Our teacher said that will have a fire drill today.
- (idiomatic, US) Any pointless, unproductive, useless, or chaotic activity.
- Since they've changed the standards again, our previous efforts now just amount to a fire drill.
- A fire starting tool consisting of a wooden rod and an some primitive means of rapidly rotating the rod on a flat surface like a drill until tinder can be ignited.
- 1999, Paul Douglas Campbell, Survival Skills of Native California, →ISBN, page 4:
- There is no machine on earth so potent, yet so simple and elegant, as the two sticks of the Native American fire drill;
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Synonyms
- (fire starting tool): bow drill, fire stick, pump drill
- (pointless activity): Chinese fire drill
- (evacuation practice for a fire): fire practice
Translations
practice to prepare for evacuation in the event of a fire
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pointless activity
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rod which is rotated on a flat surface
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See also
- bow drill
- hand drill
- pump drill
- strap drill
References
- “fire-drill” in the Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- “fire-drill” in the Collins English Dictionary, Glasgow: HarperCollins Publishers.
- “fire drill” (US) / “fire drill” (UK) in Oxford Dictionaries, Oxford University Press.
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