kaataa bensaa liekkeihin

Finnish

Etymology

Literally "to pour gasoline on flames". A modern alteration of the now-rarer form kaataa öljyä liekkeihin (“to pour oil on flames”), calquing (directly or via another language) Latin oleum camino addo (“to add oil to the furnace”).

Verb

kaataa bensaa liekkeihin

1. (idiomatic) to add fuel to the fire

Conjugation

See kaataa; bensaa is in the partitive case, but is inflected in the genitive in action nouns: see Appendix:Finnish verb phrases. liekkeihin is not inflected.