hired gun
4
7.1
- noun
- /ˈhaɪərd ɡʌn/
- Slang
:
mercenario
- In a challenging negotiation, they decided to hire a hired gun to strengthen their position.
- just a hired gun
- best hired gun
Yeah, He was the hired gun by NASA, Right.
- Yeah, He was the hired gun by NASA, Right.
Examples
-
She has learned, however, to survive without letting the persona of a hired gun consume her own values and conscience.
Academic text (1994) -
He's a former fsb operative, now a hired gun for big corporations.
-
We think we should bring in our own hired guns.
-
Tons of our hired guns use this insurance plan.
Blog text (22) -
He seems like more of a hired gun, not interested in being involved at all levels.
Blog text (22) -
With expert witnesses being paid to testify on everything from alloys to zygotes, courts are increasingly willing to let clients sue their hired guns who misfire on the stand.
Academic text (1994) -
While the "big eight" accounting firms are still hired guns in many legal billing disputes, clients increasingly have enlisted the aid of these specialized industry watchdogs, most of whom are attorneys with an accounting background.
Academic text (1994) -
Odelson is a longtime election lawyer, a hired gun who has worked with everyone from President Bush and his dimpled chads in Florida to Brian Buchanan, a Joliet plumber running for Will County state's attorney.
Blog text (6) -
The company brought in a hired gun to help manage the crisis effectively and decisively.
-
After much consideration, the team concluded that engaging a hired gun was necessary to tackle the difficult project.
Synonyms
97
8.3
A person who is paid to fight for a foreign army
57
7.6
A person who criminals pay to kill someone
49
8.1
A person who is paid to kill someone, often with a gun
3
9.9
A low-level criminal hired to do violent or illegal jobs
2
8.5
A person hired to do unpleasant jobs like firing workers or ruining someone's reputation
2
9.1
A person who is paid to kill someone with a gun
2
8.6
A person who works only for money and shows little loyalty or personal commitment
2
7.4
People paid to protect or scare others
A woman hired to do unpleasant, tough jobs like firing people for someone in power
Antonyms
How Ruthless
Surface Forms
Morphology
The combination of 'hired' (employed) and 'gun' (a weapon or hired shooter) makes it partially predictable that the phrase refers to someone employed to carry out aggressive or violent tasks, so a learner could infer a literal hired shooter. However, the broader figurative extension to any hired specialist or ruthless professional is metaphorical and not fully derivable from the parts without prior exposure, so the transparency is limited.
Etymology
Hired gun is also used for any person you hire to do a hard or tough job because it comes from the idea of paying a gun, a shooter, to solve a problem, so it now means 'a person paid to do a specific, often difficult task'.