submachine gun

[suhb-muh-sheen guhn]

noun

1. a lightweight automatic or semiautomatic gun, fired from the shoulder or hip. SMG

Word History and Origins

Origin of submachine gun¹

First recorded in 1915–20; sub- + machine gun

Example Sentences

In the predawn hours of March 13, 1944, a Halifax bomber flew across the black waters of the Adriatic Sea carrying four Jewish paratroopers equipped with submachine guns, pistols and knives.

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Images from Antara suggest one of the objects appeared to be a submachine gun and another looked like a pistol.

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They drilled through a newly plastered and redecorated area where they discovered three bags inside a tea-towel, with two containing a Skorpion submachine gun each and a pistol in the remaining package.

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He admitted he had told the FBI that Pratt had a submachine gun.

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A professor also showed BBC Panorama how he found someone within moments on Telegram who offered to ship an Uzi submachine gun to the UK for £850.

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