machine gun
noun
a small arm operated by a mechanism, able to deliver a rapid and continuous fire of bullets as long as the trigger is pressed.
Jump To:
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machine gun
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machine-gun
machine-gunverb (used with object)to shoot at with a machine gun.
machine gun
1 Americannoun
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machine guns
plural
machine-gun
2
American
[muh-sheen-guhn]
/ məˈʃinˌgʌn /
verb (used with object)
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machine-guns,
present (3rd person singular)
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machine-gunned,
past participle, past
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machine-gunning
present participle
machine gun
British
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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machine-gunsimple
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machine-gunssimple
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have machine-gunnedperfect
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has machine-gunnedperfect
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am machine-gunningprogressive
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are machine-gunningprogressive
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is machine-gunningprogressive
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have been machine-gunningperfect progressive
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has been machine-gunningperfect progressive
Past
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machine-gunnedsimple
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had machine-gunnedperfect
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was machine-gunningprogressive
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were machine-gunningprogressive
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had been machine-gunningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of machine gun1
First recorded in 1865–70
Origin of machine-gun2
First recorded in 1880–85
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.
See Examples For:
He was Sylvester Stallone in the 1986 action movie “Cobra,” toting a machine gun.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 22, 2026
The Taiwanese boats also have water cannon and a 20-millimetre static machine gun, but are careful to avoid a confrontation that "could lead to unimaginable consequences", Huang said.
From Barron's ● Nov. 11, 2025
On a shelf is a photograph of Wanda as a fighter, brandishing a machine gun during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, when the Polish underground fought the German Army amidst the ruins of the city.
From BBC ● May 2, 2025
He trained in San Diego — to fire a machine gun, position a gas mask, prove he could swim — and shipped out to Hawaii.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 7, 2024
“Nearby there was a German machine gun unit giving our troops a lot of trouble,” he remembered.
From "The War to End All Wars: World War I" by Russell Freedman
Led by Busby’s machine-gun mandolin riffs and hair-raising tenor, the band had a hard-edged bluegrass-style sound that was a far cry from the homogenized, syrupy country-and-western slop heard around town.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026
It’s hard to get exact numbers on the revenue that has produced, but with numbers like that, Atlas has likely made millions off this machine-gun approach.
From Salon ● Nov. 21, 2025
Warming up: A movie star in his native Russia, Borisov portrayed machine-gun inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov in “AK-47” before winning over “Anora” director Sean Baker with his nuanced character work in 2021’s “Compartment No. 6.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 5, 2025
Five states have no state-level machine-gun regulations at all.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 9, 2024
The rain was coming down now like machine-gun fire, and the water from the marsh began to swirl up around our feet.
From "Jacob Have I Loved" by Katherine Paterson
His battalion's attack on the German trench had started well according to Stephen Erskin, curator of the Green Howard's Museum in Richmond, with more than 140 prisoners and two machine-guns captured.
From BBC ● Jul. 4, 2016
Kobani's defenders, outgunned by the militants, are hoping the arrival of peshmerga forces from Iraqi Kurdistan with badly-needed weapons including cannon and truck-mounted machine-guns will help them turn the tide.
From Reuters ● Oct. 31, 2014
If you have no heavy weaponry and face an enemy who has machine-guns, there are only three things you can do.
From Salon ● Jan. 11, 2014
Ash is equipped with a jet-pack which is also a drill, as well as an arsenal of over-the-top machine-guns, rockets, lasers which steadily grows as the game progresses.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 4, 2012
Burnet found all his persuasiveness unavailing until a diversion was caused by the appearance of the two gunners bringing up their machine-guns, followed by the boatmen and the Arabs loaded with stores.
From Carry On! A Story of the Fight for Bagdad by Herbert Strang
He scored twice at Newcastle, both close-range headers, the second of which involved hurling himself through the chest of a Newcastle defender like an action-movie stuntman being machine-gunned through a plate glass window.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 17, 2020
The orchestra does not stint on traditional fare: amid the splattering melons and machine-gunned music paper, it offered potent performances of Mahler’s Fifth and Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet.”
From The New Yorker ● Dec. 6, 2018
Serena, in her final match, machine-gunned her onetime rival Sharapova off the court so brusquely and efficiently, it looked as if she had an urgent appointment somewhere that she couldn’t miss.
From New York Times ● Aug. 23, 2012
A decade ago, two of the most distinctive voices in TV belonged to writer-producers whose characters machine-gunned crisp dialogue at a blinding words-per-minute rate.
From Time ● Jun. 11, 2012
The Germans had not sniped or machine-gunned the stretcher-bearers, but had sent their own men out on the same mission too.
From From Bapaume to Passchendaele, 1917 by Philip Gibbs
Talk about using it as ammo, I’m machine-gunning love.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 18, 2021
When he pauses mid-strut to perform his signature move of machine-gunning the crowd with his 1962 guitar, he brings the house down.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 7, 2013
"I think," said Sophie, machine-gunning us through her fringe, "I have a bra named after me."
From The Guardian ● Mar. 24, 2010
On the Rhine frontier, the French tried some heavy machine-gunning across the river at Kehl.
From Time Magazine Archive
Instead of machine-gunning them, he brought his heel down hard on the ping-pong ball that came rolling toward him off the paddle of one of the two officers playing.
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
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.
