Etymology

From fire +‎ backCategory:English compound terms#FIREBACK.

Noun

fireback (plural firebacks)Category:English lemmas#FIREBACKCategory:English nouns#FIREBACKCategory:English countable nouns#FIREBACKCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#FIREBACKCategory:Pages with entries#FIREBACKCategory:Pages with 1 entry#FIREBACK

2. Any of certain species of pheasant in the genus Lophura.
   • 1910, Liberty Hyde Bailey, Cyclopedia of American Agriculture: A Popular Survey of Agricultural Conditions, Practices and Ideals in the United States and Canada (3rd edition), Macmillan, page 581:

     There are several species of the Fireback pheasant, the most common of which is the Siamese, which inhabits parts of Siam.

     Category:English terms with quotations#FIREBACK

   • 2001, Marshall Cavendish Corporation, Endangered Wildlife and Plants of the World, →ISBN, page 551:

     The name fireback comes from this bird's dazzling plumage.

     Category:English terms with quotations#FIREBACK

4. A piece of iron that fits into the back of a fireplace to distribute the heat and keep the brick from cracking.

   Coordinate term: reredos

   • 1903, Daughters of the American Revolution, Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine, volume 22 (Jan.-June 1903), National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution., page 84:

     The only condition of the loan is that if the Daughters of the American Revolution are ever disbanded, that the fireback is to be returned to the descendants of General Lincoln.

     Category:English terms with quotations#FIREBACK

   • 1912, Mary Harrod Northend, Colonial Homes and Their Furnishings, Little, Brown, and Company, page 72:

     Many of the later style fireplaces, most especially of the better class, showed firebacks. These were of iron, and were designed to keep the back of the fireplace from cracking. ... In the Pickering house on Broad Street, Salem, is a quaint fireback which was made in the first iron foundry at Saugus, now Lynn.

     Category:English terms with quotations#FIREBACK

   • 2016, Kerry Greenwood, Murder and Mendelssohn, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 303:

     `That shirt is for the fireback,' she told him.'

     Category:English terms with quotations#FIREBACK

See also

• backsplash

Further reading

• Fireback in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)
• fireback on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Lophura on Wikispecies.Wikispecies

Anagrams

• back fire, backfire