machine gun meaning: definition, quotations

machine gun

nounalso spelled machine-gun

/məˈʃiːn ɡʌn/

A type of fully automatic firearm that fires bullets in rapid succession by a single action of the trigger and is capable of sustained fire.

I'm gonna get you, baby / Like a machine gun, I'm gonna… Tak-Tak-Tak-Tak-Tak1974, “I'm Gonna Get You”, performed by Eleanore Mills:
Whether modern, industrial man is less or more warlike than his hunter-gatherer ancestors is impossible to determine. The machine gun is so much more lethal than the bow and arrow that comparisons are meaningless.2013 July 20, “Old soldiers?”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:

1 more example

Brigadier John K. Lawson's bunker on the west side of Wong Nai Chung Gap that the West Brigade used as headquarters. Brigadier Lawson and three of his men were hit by machine-gun fire escaping from the bunker on Dec. 19, 1941.2016 December 23, Lam Yik Fei, “World - Image”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 19 Apr 2023:

Derived terms: heavy machine gun, light machine gun, medium machine gun, submachine gun
Related terms: machine carbine, machine pistol, machine rifle, chain gun

verb

To fire a machine gun.

To shoot (people, etc.) with a machine gun.

During a time when the New Right is becoming increasingly powerful, when gay people are machine-gunned down in the streets, lesbians and gay men are recognizing the necessity of helping each other out.1980 December 6, “Thank You”, in Gay Community News, volume 8, number 20, page 4:

To shoot (something) out of or as if out of a machine gun.

The opportunity for examining this historical phenomenon was lost on the producers of Making Sense of the Sixties, as images of rock festivals and tragedies were machine-gunned at the viewer, presumably to recreate a sense of the general confusion (as opposed to the cultural excitement) of the period.1991 February 4, Owen Shows, “Start Making Sense”, in Gay Community News, volume 18, number 28, page 16: