characterized by, delivered, or occurring in rapid succession.
rapid-fire questions; rapid-fire events.
Military. discharging in rapid fire.
rapid-fire rifles.
discharging, operating, etc., at a rate more rapid than normal.
a rapid-fire staple gun.
firing shots rapidly
denoting medium-calibre mounted guns designed for rapid fire
done, delivered, or occurring in rapid succession
First recorded in 1885–90
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“The potential for rapid fire growth with erratic fire behavior,” said the county update, “remains high.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 12, 2026
Sanz said the rapid fire had been complex and the majority or even all of the victims may have been foreign nationals.
From BBC ● Jul. 11, 2026
The format - as the name suggests - involved rapid fire sketches, some lasting just ten seconds and none lasting longer than three minutes.
From BBC ● Jan. 24, 2026
“When they get here I’ll sit down with them and kind of just rapid fire try to figure out a profile of them from a nutrition standpoint.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 21, 2025
She typed away on a keyboard, red nails tap-tapping in rapid fire.
From "The Thing About Jellyfish" by Ali Benjamin
His particular brand of cultural fluency — a rapid-fire mix of food, fashion, basketball, politics and pop culture — is what made the “Gua Bao Bad Boy” impossible to categorize.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2026
Following the emergency meeting earlier this year, Cursor began pushing out rapid-fire upgrades to Composer.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 19, 2026
It just got easier to place rapid-fire trades in stocks and options, as “pattern day trader” restrictions start going off the books at brokers like Robinhood Markets and Webull.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026
From rapid-fire reviews to emotional reactions, creators are shaping reading habits at scale and #BookTok has more than 77 million posts.
From BBC ● Apr. 24, 2026
The war games required them to make decisive, rapid-fire decisions under conditions of high pressure and with limited information, which is, of course, what they did all day at work.
From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell
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.
