bird shot
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of bird shot
First recorded in 1620–30
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.
Pieces of pottery, pins, hundreds of musket balls and bird shot, arrowheads, and a trigger guard for a musket turned up.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 23, 2022
This fraud, these scams, it’s like bird shot.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 13, 2020
The name was a cheeky homage to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, the newspaper that first reported the 2006 incident in which Dick Cheney accidentally fired bird shot into a friend.
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 3, 2017
Here, after then vice-president Dick Cheney accidentally shot hunting pal Harry Whittington with bird shot – making him the first person to be shot by a sitting vice-president since Anthony Hamilton.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 6, 2015
A scarlet-crested bird shot by below, brushing sure dark wings against a quivering bush.
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
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.
