strafe
Americanverb (used with object)
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to attack (ground troops or installations) by airplanes with machine-gun fire.
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Slang. to reprimand viciously.
verb (used without object)
noun
verb
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to machine-gun (troops, etc) from the air
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slang to punish harshly
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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strafesimple
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strafessimple
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have strafedperfect
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has strafedperfect
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am strafingprogressive
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are strafingprogressive
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is strafingprogressive
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have been strafingperfect progressive
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has been strafingperfect progressive
Past
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strafedsimple
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had strafedperfect
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was strafingprogressive
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were strafingprogressive
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had been strafingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of strafe
First recorded in 1910–15; from German strafen “to punish”
Explanation
To strafe is to attack from above with bullets or bombs. During World War I, planes fitted with machine guns flew low so they could strafe targets below. Think of a quick-firing machine gun or rapid series of bombs to understand the military verb strafe. This technique made it possible to mount deadly attacks on the enemy, provided that planes could fly at very low altitudes. Technology improvements by World War II meant that pilots of these planes were better protected in cockpits. The word strafe comes from a German catchphrase used during World War I, Gott strafe England, "may God punish England."
Vocabulary lists containing strafe
Unbroken
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This Week In Culture: September 28–October 4, 2019
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Most Dangerous
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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.
That country-folk use goose-grass as a strainer “to clear their milke from strawes, haires, and any other thing that falleth into it.”
From The Old English Herbals by Rohde, Eleanour Sinclair
We will flie lyk strawes quhan we pleas; wild-strawes and corne-strawes wilbe horses to ws, an ve put thaim betwixt our foot, and say, "Horse and Hattok, in the Divellis name!"
From The Witch-cult in Western Europe A Study in Anthropology by Murray, Margaret Alice
"For if," he says, "the leaves thereof or dried stalks be stripped into small strawes, they arise unto Amber, Wax, and other Electricks, no otherwise then those of Wheat or Rye."
From On the magnet, magnetick bodies also, and on the great magnet the earth a new physiology, demonstrated by many arguments & experiments by Gilbert, William
And than ve void flie away, quhair ve vold, be ewin as strawes wold flie wpon an hie-way.
From The Witch-cult in Western Europe A Study in Anthropology by Murray, Margaret Alice
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.
