like a house on fire

like a house on fire

Very quickly or rapidly and with great force or intensity. Out of nowhere, this crazed bull started charging at us like a house on fire! John hit the gas and started careening down the road like a house on fire. I can't wait for you to meet Mark. I just know the two of you will get on like a house on fire!

See also: fire, house, like, on

Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2015 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

like a house on fire

 and like a house afire

Rur. rapidly and with force. The truck came roaring down the road like a house on fire. The crowd burst through the gate like a house afire.

See also: fire, house, like, on

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

like a house afire/on fire

Very quickly and efficiently; very well. The simile is based on how houses made of timber or thatch burn very fast, as was the case with the log cabins of American pioneers. Washington Irving used the expression in Knickerbocker’s History of New York (1809), “At it they went like five hundred houses on fire,” and Dickens is quoted as having used it to mean very well (“I am getting on . . . like ‘a house on fire’”) in a letter of 1837.

See also: afire, fire, house, like, on

The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer