boutefeu

• boutè-feu

Borrowed from French boutefeu, from bouter (“to thrust, put”) + feu (“fire”).

boutefeu (plural boutefeus)

1. (obsolete) An incendiary; an inciter of quarrels.

   Synonym: firebrand

   • 1622, Francis, Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Alban [i.e. Francis Bacon], The Historie of the Raigne of King Henry the Seventh, […], London: […] W[illiam] Stansby for Matthew Lownes, and William Barret, →OCLC:

     Animated by […] John a Chamber, a very boutefeu, […] they entered into open rebellion.

   • 1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]. Canto I.”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678, →OCLC; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC:

     But we, who only do infuse / The rage in them like boutè-feus, / 'Tis our example that instils / In them th' infection of our ills.

• “boutefeu”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• OED has more quotations

• boute-feu

From bouter le feu.

• IPA^(key): /but.fø/

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boutefeu m (plural boutefeux)

1. linstock (stick for lighting cannon)
2. (by extension) gunner
3. fire-starter, arsonist
4. (figurative) incendiary, firebrand
   • 1972, Georges Brassens, “Mourir pour des idées”, in Fernande:

     O vous, les boutefeux, ô vous les bons apôtres / Mourez donc les premiers, nous vous cédons le pas / Mais de grâce, morbleu ! laissez vivre les autres !

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

5. (mining) blaster, shotfirer (person in charge of detonating explosives)

• “boutefeu”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.