FIREARM

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does firearm mean? 

• FIREARM (noun)
  The noun FIREARM has 1 sense:

1. a portable gun

  Familiarity information: FIREARM used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FIREARM (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A portable gun

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

firearm; piece; small-arm

Context example:

he wore his firearm in a shoulder holster

Hypernyms ("firearm" is a kind of...):

gun (a weapon that discharges a missile at high velocity (especially from a metal tube or barrel))

Meronyms (parts of "firearm"):

firing pin (striker that ignites the charge by striking the primer)

lock (a mechanism that detonates the charge of a gun)

sights (an optical instrument for aiding the eye in aiming, as on a firearm or surveying instrument)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "firearm"):

autoloader; self-loader (a firearm that reloads itself)

muzzle loader (an obsolete firearm that was loaded through the muzzle)

handgun; pistol; shooting iron; side arm (a firearm that is held and fired with one hand)

repeater; repeating firearm (a firearm that can fire several rounds without reloading)

rifle (a shoulder firearm with a long barrel and a rifled bore)

riot gun (a firearm designed to disperse rioters rather than to inflict serious injury or death)

scattergun; shotgun (firearm that is a double-barreled smoothbore shoulder weapon for firing shot at short ranges)

smoothbore (a firearm that has no rifling)

.22; twenty-two (a .22 caliber firearm (pistol or rifle))

 Context examples 

"He knows the meaning of firearms as well as you do. He's got intelligence and we've got to give that intelligence a chance. Put up the gun."

(White Fang, by Jack London)

It is a dangerous habit to finger loaded firearms in the pocket of one’s dressing-gown.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Of note, patients in the deliberate self-harm group who presented to the emergency department with a firearm injury had a subsequent suicide rate in the following year of 4.4%, far higher rate than any other patient group in this study.

(Emergency department study reveals patterns of patients at increased risk for suicide, National Institutes of Health)

To modernize its military, in 2018, Hungary licensed Czech firearm technology and started assembling firearms in Kiskunfélegyháza, then agreed with Airbus to open a helicopter parts factory as a joint venture in Gyula.

(Hungarian state-owned enterprise acquires Hirtenberger Defence Group, Wikinews)

Besides, this god had no club, no whip, no firearm.

(White Fang, by Jack London)