Definition of "gun" in English

noun

1. A device for shooting projectiles or ditto (a shooter), functioning through stored energy: a firearm, cannon, harpoon gun/spear gun, raygun, etc, not a bow and arrow, or slingshot.

   • Well, I've always been progun, you know that. It's... yeah, I think adding more guns into a situation is obviously the way to prevent shooting. I think in a way, if we take the guns away, the shootings may escalate. And I think that's why he's so firm on literally arming everyone. I think if you don't have a gun in your hands... well, let's not find out what that world would be.
   • Guns were considered improvements of crossbows and catapults.
   • Looking for wild meat to fill his family's freezer for the winter, the young man quietly raised up his gun at the approaching deer.

2. A device operated by a trigger and acting in a manner similar to a firearm.

3. (surfing) A long surfboard designed for surfing big waves (not the same as a longboard, a gun has a pointed nose and is generally a little narrower).

   • 2000, Drew Kampion, surfline.com by the winter of 1962, the Brewer Surfboards Hawaii gun was the most in-demand big-wave equipment on the North Shore.

4. (cellular automata) A pattern that "fires" out other patterns.

5. (colloquial, metonymic) A person who carries or uses a gun (rifle, shotgun or handgun), particularly with reference to how quickly the person can draw and fire the gun.

   • Some said that the cowboy was the fastest gun in the West.

6. (television) An electron gun.

7. (colloquial, usually in the plural) The biceps.

8. (nautical, in the plural) Violent blasts of wind.

9. (Australia, slang) Someone excellent, surpassingly wonderful, or cool.

verb

1. (transitive) To cause to speed up.

   • He gunned the engine.

2. (informal) To offer vigorous support to (a person or cause).

   • We're all gunning for you.

3. (informal) (gunning for something or gunning to do something) make a great effort.

4. To seek to attack someone; to take aim at someone; used with for.

   • He's been gunning for you ever since you embarrassed him at the party.

5. To practice fowling or hunting small game; chiefly in participial form: to go gunning.

6. (ambitransitive, US, prison slang, of a male prisoner) Synonym of gun down (“to masturbate while making sustained eye contact with someone — typically a female prison officer — as a form of intimidation”).