play with fire

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play with fire (third-person singular simple present plays with fire, present participle playing with fire, simple past and past participle played with fire)

1. (idiomatic) To put oneself in a precarious situation with a high risk of getting harmed, particularly emotionally or financially.

   I'm telling you, if you sign that paper, you're playing with fire.

   Play with fire and you get burned.

   • 2013, Al Gore, The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change‎^[1], New York: Random House, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, pages 310–311:

     Long predicted by climate models, stratospheric cooling is a result of the Earth’s atmosphere attempting to maintain its energy "balance." Much more work will need to be performed before this troubling surprise is fully understood, but it already illustrates the recklessness of this "planetary experiment" that humanity has under way. We are not only playing with fire, but ice as well. As Robert Frost wrote, "Some say the world will end in fire; some say in ice." Either one, he added, "would suffice."

   • 2024 July 22, Nimi Princewill, “Uganda’s President Museveni warns citizens they are ‘playing with fire’ over planned protests”, in CNN‎^[2]:

     Uganda’s hardline President Yoweri Museveni has warned citizens planning anti-corruption protests Tuesday that they are “playing with fire.”

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:play with fire.

• ask for it
• ask for trouble