fire department
Americannoun
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the department of a municipal government charged with the prevention and extinguishing of fire.
-
the personnel in such a department.
noun
Etymology
Origin of fire department
An Americanism dating back to 1815–25
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“Ice brought the lines too close to the trees. We’re keeping an eye on it, since the fire department is too busy to answer the phone.”
From Literature
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Below me, the fire department stood staring in horror at their dry-rotted nets that had been torn to shreds.
From Literature
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Palisades resident and architect Ardie Tavangarian is so confident in his design that he even asked the fire department if they could start a controlled fire on the property to test it all out.
From Los Angeles Times
One early party he planned—a Halloween rave at a defunct plastics plant that was a registered toxic-waste site—was shut down by the fire department after it deemed the place unsafe.
Safety controls, validated by the fire department, must be implemented for the storage of this fuel, the businessman told AFP, but "the institutions themselves are not able to clearly outline all the steps."
From Barron's
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.