0 present participle of backfire
1 (of a plan) to have the opposite result from the one you intended:
2 (of an engine) to make a loud noise as a result of fuel burning too early:
Indirect mechanisms for motivating conservation run a risk of backfiring, to the extent that they are not carefully planned to align commercial and conservation incentives.
One could say that his result demonstrates the backfiring of those tactics.
Socialism is thus backfiring on the people because of its poor economic management and its dogmatic cosmopolitanism.
I firmly believe that anti-discrimination measures have a nasty habit of backfiring and themselves becoming discriminatory.
And that all of that was in my eyes all the time, backfiring all these years...
He often finds himself building huge machinery, such as roach-catching contraptions, most of the time resulting in them backfiring.
Gunfire can be confused with other sounds that can sound similar, such as firework explosions and cars backfiring.
I tried to pass if off as a car backfiring, but it kept happening over and over.
