recon by fire
n.— «The danger is particularly acute at night. The Iraqis do not have night-vision equipment, so when they spot people approaching their checkpoints they have a tendency to do what the Americans refer to as “recon by fire.” If those people happen to be Americans, they will respond forcefully to any shots fired in their direction, and will sometimes call in an air strike.» —“Iraq: You want me to wear what?!” by Alexandra Zavis in Hawr Rajab, Iraq Los Angeles Times: Babylon & Beyond Feb. 20, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Why would we describe something as having a meteoric rise when meteors fall to the ground? The adjective meteoric refers to the speed and duration of a meteor, not its direction. This is part of a complete episode.
Related
As we’ve previously discussed, firefighters don and doff their equipment, terms deriving from do on and do off. They are also said to dout a fire, meaning they “extinguish” it, dout being a similar shortening of do out. This is...