First recorded in 1865–70
First recorded in 1880–85
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Both Madis vehicles are equipped with a cannon and a smaller machine gun that, along with new types of ammunition, are becoming a growing part of antidrone operations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 30, 2026
But they came under Israeli attack, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, which said the ambulances were hit with a warning strike and machine gun fire.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 23, 2026
The Vahid Online Telegram channel shared two photographs of a black pickup truck with a machine gun mounted in the back in Tehran's Sadeghiyeh Square on the night of 8 January.
From BBC ● Feb. 9, 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
Brian’s a machine, a machine gun, two at a time, three, four, underhand, overhand, both hands.
From "I'll Give You the Sun" by Jandy Nelson
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
Robert D. Booker, an infantryman with the 34th Infantry Division who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for heroic actions while under machine-gun fire in Tunisia in 1943.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 12, 2023
Australian special forces soldier Ben Roberts-Smith was lauded as a hero and awarded Australia's highest military honour for "conspicuous gallantry" during a 2010 attack on two Taliban machine-gun posts during his fifth tour of Afghanistan.
From Reuters ● May 30, 2023
The former Palestine Hotel, Ferdous Square, the Green Zone, the airport road pockmarked by IED and machine-gun attacks have been landscaped or covered in fresh stucco and paint.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 16, 2023
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
Hundreds of Turks were busy, working by lantern-light, in digging themselves in, while the whole system of earthworks literally bristled with machine-guns.
From The Fight for Constantinople A Story of the Gallipoli Peninsula by Westerman, Percy F. (Percy Francis)
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 Gibbs, Philip
Talk about using it as ammo, I’m machine-gunning love.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 18, 2021
They put three past Chelsea at Stamford Bridge and Joe Allen’s late equaliser against Arsenal on Wednesday had Klopp machine-gunning his fists in celebration.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 15, 2016
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
In countless small but deadly revolutions, from the days of the smoothbore musket through the time of the machine-gunning fighter plane, they have earned their unhappy renown as a sort of American Balkans-plus-volcanoes.
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.
