gunfire
English edit
Etymology edit
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
gunfire (usually uncountable, plural gunfires)
- Shots from a gun or guns, typically creating loud report.
- Let's hide in the trees to avoid the gunfire.
- Sergeant, direct your gunfire toward that copse of trees.
- (chiefly military) The use of gunpowder-type weapons, mainly cannon, as opposed to swords or bayonets.
- Killing people became much easier and faster once armies started using gunfire.
- (military) The time of firing of the morning gun or the evening gun.
- 1851, W. Draper Bolton, Bolton's Mauritius almanac, and official directory:
- Art. 33. All Plying boats, with the exception of two which are to be weekly appoin[t]ed by the Chief Commissary of Police and Harbour Master, and at gunfire in the evening to be placed in a tier alongside of the Quay or at a place to be pointed out by these Officers and fastened by a claim and a padlock, the key of which is to be kept by the Porter on duty or by the Police Guard who is to release them at gunfire in the morning.
- 1864, Edmund Burke, editor, The Annual Register; A review of public events at home and abroad, for the year 1863:
- The grand event on the 14th was the shooting for the second stage for the Queen's prize. This commenced punctually at gunfire in the morning : the men being divided into four squads at the long ranges on the north side of the common.
- (army slang) Tea, a cup of tea, especially one served early in the morning before first parade.
- 1937, David Jones, In Parenthesis, I:
- They had only in them the rolled mattresses, the neatly piled bed-boards and the empty tea-buckets of the orderly-men, empied of their last gun-fire.
- 1937, David Jones, In Parenthesis, I:
Related terms edit
Translations edit
shots from guns
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use of gunpowder-type weapons
time of firing of the morning gun or the evening gun
cup of tea — see cup of tea