fuel the fire

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

to intensify, aggravate, or accelerate a conflict, controversy, emotional state, or damaging process that is already underway, by adding new material, provocations, or energy that causes it to burn with greater force; the combustion metaphor captures the chemical reality that adding fuel to a burning fire increases both its temperature and its rate of consumption, making it harder to extinguish; in interpersonal and political contexts fuelling the fire describes actions, words, or revelations that escalate an existing dispute or crisis beyond what would otherwise have occurred, whether through deliberate provocation or through the unintended consequences of ill-timed or ill-considered interventions