Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com

small arms

British  

plural noun

  1. portable firearms of relatively small calibre

"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

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:

Majungasaurus, for example, had a heavily built skull and extremely small arms despite weighing only about 1.6 tons, roughly one fifth the weight of T. rex.

From Science Daily May 20, 2026

The CIA has been supplying some Kurdish militias with small arms.

From Slate Mar. 6, 2026

Israel is a world leader in surveillance technology, drones, small arms and other products of great use to a resource-strapped government that oversees a vast and largely uninhabited territory.

From The Wall Street Journal Jan. 4, 2026

However, the Taliban have been able to utilise more straightforward equipment, like Humvees and small arms, in their operations.

From BBC Apr. 17, 2025

She was hugging me so tight her small arms felt like steel bands around my neck.

From "Summer of the Monkeys" by Wilson Rawls

Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Join 12,000,000 vocabulary learners

Start learning new words today on VocabTrainer.
You'll remember them forever.

Start training