adj. phr. (orig. American).—A general intensive: e.g., ALL-FIRED (= violent) ABUSE; an ALL-FIRED (= tremendous) NOISE; an ALL-FIRED (= very great) HURRY, etc. Also as adv. = unusually, excessively. For an apparent origin, see quot. 1755.
[1755. World, 140. How arbitrary … does mankind join words, that reason has put asunder! Thus we often hear of HELL-FIRE COLD, of devilish handsome, and the like.]
1835. HALIBURTON (‘Sam Slick’), The Clockmaker, 1. xxiv. ‘Look at that ’ere Dives,’ they say, ‘what an ALL-FIRED scrape he got into by his avarice with Lazarus.’ Ibid. I jumps up in an ALL-FIRED hurry.
1844. W. T. THOMPSON, Major Jones’s Courtship, 87. The fust thing I knowed my trousers was plastered all over with [hot lasses] whar I rubbed it off on ’em, it burnt so ALFIRED bad.
1845. The Knickerbocker [BARTLETT]. I’m dying—I know I am! My mouth tastes like a rusty cent. The doctor will charge an ALL-FIRED price to cure me.
1843. W. T. PORTER, ed., The Big Bear of Arkansas, etc., 58. Old Haines sweating like a pitcher with ice-water in it, and looking ALL-FIRED tired.
1854. A. D. MILNE, Uncle Sam’s Farm Fence, 8. Wonder if it is rum that makes potatoes rot so ALL-FIREDLY.
1861. T. HUGHES, Tom Brown at Oxford, xl. ‘I knows I be so ALL-FIRED jealous; I can’t abear to hear o’ her talkin’, let alone writin’ to——’
1846. D. CORCORAN, Pickings from the Picayune, 47. They had an al-mighty deal to say up in our parts about Orleans, and how ALL-FIRED easy it is to make money in it, but it’s no ‘ham’ and all ‘hominy,’ I reckon.
1883. PAYN, Thicker than Water, xvii. You’ve been an ALL-FIRED time, you have, in selling those jars.
