covering fire

1. 1.

   fire that makes it difficult for the enemy to fire on your own individuals or formations

   “artillery provided covering fire for the withdrawal”

   Synonymscover

   Broaderfire

Questions about covering fire

What does covering fire mean?

covering fire means "fire that makes it difficult for the enemy to fire on your own individuals or formations".

What is another word for covering fire?

Close synonyms include cover. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is covering fire a common word?

covering fire is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.