Meaning of trial by fire | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A test in which a person is exposed to flames in order to assess their truthfulness, commitment, courage etc.
2. A situation in which a soldier or other combatant faces the discharge of opposing weapons, as a test of their fortitude.
3. Any ordeal which tests one's strength, endurance or resolve.
   broadly, idiomatic

Equivalents

Examples

““[I]t seems to me Fra Francesco is the greater hero, for he offers to enter the fire for the truth, though he is sure the fire will burn him.” . . . “It is true, Messer Segretario,” said the shopkeeper, with subdued impatience. “But will you favour us by interpreting the Latin?” “Assuredly,” said Tito. “It does but express the conclusions or doctrines which the Frate specially teaches, and which the trial by fire is to prove true or false.””

“And he pointed with his little assegai, the assegai handled with the royal wood, to where the fire glowed reddest—ay, he pointed and laughed. Then, my father, I grew cold indeed—yes, I grew cold who soon should be hot, for I saw the purpose of Chaka. He would put me to the trial by fire.”

“[T]he final test, the trial by fire, which took place in a subterranean chamber of the great temple, resulted in a candidate whose courage failed him being precipitated into that lake of flame which I have already described.”

“French troops, submitting to a trial by fire, drew toward the German forts, capturing and holding some machine-gun nests.”

“Pork Chop Hill. Director Lewis Milestone . . . has produced a nerve-shattering study of how the American infantryman met his trial by fire in Korea.”

“But take it all in all, the overland trail was a trial by fire. One gets a notion of its deadliness from the fact that over five thousand people died of cholera alone.”

“Now, residents' legendary 100+-hour workweek may be on its way out. . . . Some doctors insist the long hours are a necessary trial by fire that produces highly skilled, virtually unflappable physicians.”

CEFR level