gun

From Middle English gunne, gonne, from Lady Gunilda, a huge crossbow with a powerful shot, with the second part of the term being of Old Norse origin. It was later used to denote firearms. The name Gunnhildr and its multiple variations are derived from Old Norse gunnr (“battle, war”) + hildr (“battle”), which makes it a pleonasm. In the given context the woman's name means battle maid. See also Hilda, Gunilda, Gunhild, Gunhilda, Gunnhildr.

• enPR: gŭn, IPA^(key): /ɡʌn/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• (Northern England, Ireland) IPA^(key): /ɡʊn/
• Rhymes: -ʌn

gun (plural guns)

1. A device for projecting a hard object very forcefully; a firearm or cannon.
   • 1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter 1, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC:

     They burned the old gun that used to stand in the dark corner up in the garret, close to the stuffed fox that always grinned so fiercely. Perhaps the reason why he seemed in such a ghastly rage was that he did not come by his death fairly. Otherwise his pelt would not have been so perfect.

   • 2018 February 23, Richard Ayoade, The Last Leg, Season 14, Episode 5:

     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.

   1. A very portable, short firearm, for hand use, which fires bullets or projectiles, such as a handgun, revolver, pistol, or Derringer.
   2. A less portable, long firearm that fires bullets or projectiles; a rifle, either manual, automatic or semi-automatic; a flintlock, musket or shotgun.
   3. (military) A cannon with relatively long barrel, operating with relatively low angle of fire, and having a high muzzle velocity.[1]
   4. (military) A cannon with a 6-inch/155mm minimum nominal bore diameter and tube length 30 calibers or more. See also: howitzer; mortar.[1]
   5. (figurative) A firearm or cannon used for saluting or signalling.^{21-gun salute}
      • 1906, Stanley J[ohn] Weyman, chapter I, in Chippinge Borough, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co., →OCLC, page 01:

        It was April 22, 1831, and a young man was walking down Whitehall in the direction of Parliament Street. […]. He halted opposite the Privy Gardens, and, with his face turned skywards, listened until the sound of the Tower guns smote again on the ear and dispelled his doubts.

2. A device operated by a trigger and acting in a manner similar to a firearm.
   1. Any implement designed to fire a projectile from a tube.

      air-pressure pellet gun

      zipgun

      nail gun

   2. A device or tool that projects a substance.

      squirt gun

      spray gun

      grease gun

   3. A device or tool that applies something rather than projecting it.

      a rivet gun

      screw gun

      a price-label gun

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.
   • 2000, Gary William Flake, The computational beauty of nature:

     The glider gun on the bottom of the NOT circuit emits a continuous stream of gliders, while the data stream source emits a glider only when there is a value of 1 in the stream […] .

   • 2007 February 23, Frank, “Life on the Edge”, in comp.theory.cell-automata‎ (Usenet):

     It would be especially interesting if someone can find an "airplane gun", which generates airplanes at regular intervals.

   • 2010, Andrew Adamatzky, Game of Life Cellular Automata, page 74:

     Greene's period-416 2c/5 spaceship gun

5. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (colloquial, metonymically) A person who carries or uses a rifle, shotgun or handgun.

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

   • 2019 October 31, A. A. Dowd, “Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro reunite for one last gripping crime epic, The Irishman”, in AV Club‎:

     De Niro plays Frank Sheeran, the real-life South Philly truck driver who moonlighted, over the second half of the 20th century, as a hired gun for the mafia.

6. (television) An electron gun.
   • 2012, Brand Fortner, Theodore E. Meyer, Number by Colors, page 202:

     The problem is figuring out how to get the electrons from the red gun to hit only the red phosphors, the electrons from the blue gun to hit only the blue phosphors, and so on.

7. (colloquial, usually in the plural) The biceps.
8. (nautical, in the plural) Violent blasts of wind.
9. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (colloquial) An expert.
10. (Australia, slang) Someone excellent, surpassingly wonderful, or cool.

• Sranan Tongo: gon

gun (third-person singular simple present guns, present participle gunning, simple past and past participle gunned)

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.
   • 2023, George Ramsay, Amy Woodyatt, “‘Like a chairlift up Everest’: Once running’s supreme challenge, has the value of a four-minute mile diminished?”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)‎, CNN:

     Australian John Landy, one of Bannister’s rivals also gunning to break the four-minute barrier, took more than a second off the Briton’s time in Turku, Finland, a few weeks later.

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. (transitive, intransitive, 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”).
   • 2010, BNA's Employment Discrimination Report:

     […] all inmates participated in such conduct, and […] "the inmates gunned only female staff, not the all-male security staff," he said.

• gun down
• gun it
• outgun

Related to ganef.

gun (plural guns)

1. (obsolete, slang) A magsman or street thief.
   • 1863, Blanchard Jerrold, Signals of Distress in Refuges and Homes of Charity (etc.), page 2:

     To discover […] how the honest poor are compelled to hob-and-nob with the “shoful pitcher” and the “gun,” it is necessary to visit the vast nursery-grounds of crime.

• John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary

From gunna, from gonna, from going to.

gun

1. Nonstandard spelling of going to.

   I'm gun go get my coat from da closet.

• GNU, Ngu, UNG, Ung, gnu, nug

gun

1. night

gun f (plural gonyow)

1. plain

From Proto-Mongolic *gün, compare Mongolian гүн (gün).

• IPA^(key): /kuŋ/

gun

1. deep

• IPA^(key): /ɣʏn/

• Dutch pronunciation

  (file)

• Hyphenation: gun
• Rhymes: -ʏn
• Homophone: Gun

gun

1. inflection of gunnen:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. imperative

gun

1. Rōmaji transcription of ぐん

Borrowed from Burmese ကုန် (kun).

gun

1. goods for sale

• Kurabe, Keita (2016 December 31) “Phonology of Burmese loanwords in Jinghpaw”, in Kyoto University Linguistic Research‎, volume 35, →DOI, →ISSN, pages 91–128

gun

1. Nonstandard spelling of gǔn.
2. Nonstandard spelling of gùn.

• Transcriptions of Mandarin into the Latin script often do not distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without indication of tone.

gun m (genitive singular gunney, plural gunnaghyn)

1. Alternative form of gunn

gun

1. Alternative form of gunne

• Rhymes: -ʊn

gun m

1. testicle, ball, bollock, egg, nut, orchis, testis

• IPA^(key): (before a broad consonant or a, o, u) /kən̪ˠ/, (before a slender consonant or e, i) /kəɲ/

From Old Irish co.

• gu (before bheil)
• gum (before b, p, m, f)

gun

1. that

   an t-amadan sin gun do thagh thu ― that fool that you voted for

   am fear gum pòs aig deireadh na mìosa ― the man that will marry at the end of the month

   an taigh gu bheil aice ― the house that she has

From Old Irish cen.

gun (+ nominative, triggers lenition except before d, t, n or s)

1. without

   gun teagamh ― without a doubt

   gun chàr ― without a car

2. used to negate a verbal noun

   thuirt mi ris gun a dhol a-mach ― I told him not to go out

• às aonais

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

gun (triggers lenition)

1. neither...nor
   • 1911 (Birlinn Limited), Edward Dwelly: The Illustrated Gaelic-English Dictionary:

     Duine gun mhath gun chron, is motha a chron na a mhath. ― A man that's neither good nor ill is more ill than good.

• IPA^(key): /ɡũ̀/

gùn

1. to be long (usually along a horizontal axis)

• gun before a direct object

Possibly from Proto-Yoruboid *gwũ̀ (“to ascend”) or Proto-Yoruboid *gũ̀, cognate with Igala gwú (“to climb, to mate”)

• IPA^(key): /ɡũ̀/

gùn

1. (intransitive) to climb, to ascend something
2. to be climbed, to be mounted
3. (intransitive, transitive) to ride or mount (someone or something)

   ó gun kẹ́tẹ́kẹ́tẹ́ ― She mounted a donkey

4. (idiomatic, intransitive) to copulate, to mate

   Synonym: dó

5. (idiomatic) to be possessed; (in particular) to be possessed by the spirit of an orisha

   ó ń hùwà bí ẹni tí Ṣàngó ń gùn ― He is behaving like someone that Sango is possessing

• gun before a direct object

Possibly from Proto-Yoruboid *gwũ̀ (“to sweat”), cognate with Igala gwù (“to sweat”), see *(ò)úgwũ̀ (“sweat”), úgwù (“sweat”), and òógùn (“sweat, perspiration”)

• IPA^(key): /ɡũ̀/

gùn

1. (intransitive) to sweat

   Synonym: làágùn

• òógùn (“sweat”)

• IPA^(key): /ɡũ̄/

gun

1. to be angular in shape, to form an angle

• igun (“corner, angle”)
• orígun

Cognates with Itsekiri gún

• IPA^(key): /ɡṹ/

gún

1. to pound

   Jùmọ̀kẹ́ ò kí ń gún iyán dáadáa, ẹ̀bà nìkan ló lè tẹ̀. ― Jumoke doesn't pound yam well, she can only make eba.

• gán (Ikalẹ)

• IPA^(key): /ɡṹ/

gún

1. to pierce; to jab; to penetrate; to stab

   Dókítà gún mi lábẹ́rẹ́. ― The doctor injected me with a needle.

   Igi gogoro máà gún mi lójú; àtòkèèrè la ti ń wò ó ― So that we may not be poked in the eye by the tall, pointed tree, one must watch it from afar.

• ẹ̀gún (“thorn”)

• IPA^(key): /ɡṹ/

gún

1. to be straight; to straighten
2. to be well arranged; to be in order

   Àárín tọkọtaya gún régé. ― There is peace between the couple. (literally, “Between the couple is in proper alignment.”)

3. to shrug one's shoulders

   Mo gún èjìká. ― I shrugged my shoulders.

• IPA^(key): /ɡṹ/

gún

1. to curse

   Synonym: gégùn-ún