double-barreled
Americanadjective
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having two barrels mounted side by side, as a shotgun.
-
serving a double purpose or having two parts or aspects.
a double-barreled attack on corruption.
Etymology
Origin of double-barreled
First recorded in 1700–10
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“The Bride!” is a wild, willfully over-the-top double-barreled reinvigoration of 1935’s “Bride of Frankenstein” that is always doing something a little extra in telling its unpredictable story of identity and the reclamation of the self.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 1, 2026
I remember wondering whether the literary memoirist I so enjoyed could present a big-picture argument with all the necessary historical asides while carrying forward a heavy, double-barreled thesis.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 26, 2025
Wielding a double-barreled shotgun in his review for The New York Times, the critic Stephen Holden dismissed Sparks’s book as “treacly” and called the film “a high-toned cinematic greeting card.”
From New York Times • Mar. 8, 2024
Even if the parents both keep their original names, they will be able to give their children a double-barreled surname, regardless of whether they are married.
From Seattle Times • Apr. 11, 2023
She kept a twelve-gauge double-barreled Winchester Model 21 behind the woodbox, but we figured it had been Grandpa Dowdel’s for shooting ducks.
From "A Long Way from Chicago" by Richard Peck
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
