small-bore
Americanadjective
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of, noting, or relating to a .22-caliber firearm.
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insular or parochial in scope, attitude, etc..
small-bore officials.
adjective
Etymology
Origin of small-bore
First recorded in 1895–1900
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.
Set years before the movies we know and love, the show goes small-bore on spycraft, marital diplomacy and the all-too-real cost of rebellion.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 26, 2025
Yes, it was militantly anti-message, building small-bore farces around four single, child-free New Yorkers who had an inordinate amount of time to sit in a diner.
From New York Times ● Feb. 2, 2024
Critics often derided O’Connor for what seemed to be a small-bore, mincing, and case-by-case approach to constitutional doctrine.
From Slate ● Dec. 1, 2023
In a small-bore yet prophetic detail, Continetti notes that conservative writer Whittaker Chambers refused to blurb Buckley’s 1954 book, “McCarthy and His Enemies,” warning him that the right was moving “away from reality.”
From Washington Post ● Apr. 8, 2022
Any system that constricts teachers—holds them to small-bore metrics, punishes them for forces outside their control, discourages their creativity and spontaneity, chips away at their humanity—is a bad system.
From "Drama High" by Michael Sokolove
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.
