gunfight

[guhn-fahyt]

See more synonyms for gunfight on Thesaurus.com

noun

a battle between two or more people or groups armed with guns, especially a confrontation between two gunfighters using revolvers in the frontier days of the American West.

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Origin of gunfight

First recorded in 1650–60; gun¹ + fight

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for gunfight

Contemporary Examples

This year, you stop bringing a pleasant, reasonable knife to a gunfight.
Crushing Christmas: How to Win Every Argument
Kelly Williams Brown
December 24, 2013
Murray added: “Schneiderman is bringing a knife to a gunfight.”
Inside the Donald Trump–Eric Schneiderman TV Food Fight
Lloyd Grove
August 29, 2013
This weekend I posted a book club entry about Adam Winkler's important history of US gun law, Gunfight.
No, the 2nd Amendment Does Not Authorize Armed Sedition
David Frum
March 25, 2013
“Many of those Libyans died in the gunfight fighting off the attackers,” one of the officials said.
Obama’s Shaky Libya Narrative
Eli Lake
September 21, 2012
There was no 40-minute gunfight, he writes, and the SEALs were not fired at as they approached the compound.
SEALs Book on Raid to Kill Osama Contradicts Administration’s Version in Several Key Spots
The Daily Beast
August 29, 2012

Historical Examples

The gunfight destroyed his faith in his ability to do it—or most of it, anyway.
The Draw
Jerome Bixby
Natural target in a gunfight, and in a rough-and-tumble it gets them all tangled up.
Null-ABC
Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire

British Dictionary definitions for gunfight

gunfight

noun

mainly US a fight between persons using firearms

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Derived Formsgunfighter, noungunfighting, noun

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012