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Glite Dictionary
🚀 A guided missile 🐍 A desert snake
sidewinder

sidewinder

3 9.9
A small missile that follows heat from a plane to hit it
  • noun
  • /ˈsaɪdˌwaɪndər/
  • Specialized
translation icon : Sidewinder
  • The Sidewinder overtakes the attacker as Steve rolls away out of position.
  • Sidewinder missile
  • AIM-9 Sidewinder
  • fires a Sidewinder

Examples

  • Okay, sidewinder missile selected.

    Top Gun (1986)

  • Simultaneously, they drop their AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • We're now reaching the yield level of a sidewinder missile.

    Cradle 2 the Grave (2003)

  • If I had a Sidewinder missile, I could save the taxpayers a lot of money.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • Five yards before the sidewinder can get to the attacker, it explodes.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • The F-15's Sidewinder blows the MIG up, taking the missile with it.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • An F-15E that was already in theater could carry AMRAAM, Sidewinder, a targeting pod, GPS/LGB bombs.

    Blog text (14)

  • Several F-14s are being readied for flight, deadly Sidewinder missiles fitted to their racks, magazines of .20mm cannon rounds loaded into place.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • Opposing the F-14s and F-15s were Air Force and Navy aggressors flying F-5E aircraft armed with a modified, boresight-only version of the AIM-9L Sidewinder, a representation of a future 1985 Soviet threat.

    Academic text (2017)

  • The fighter jet launched a sidewinder missile to intercept the enemy aircraft.

Synonyms

heat-seeking missile
vssidewinder
  • Specialized
4 5.0

A weapon that follows the heat from a plane's engine to hit it

is limited to launches from aircraft rather than any platform
air-to-air missile
vssidewinder
  • Specialized
2 5.3

A weapon that one plane fires to destroy another plane in the air

focuses on infrared homing to track targets rather than general launch purpose

Compounds

sidewinder route
9.4

An indirect way taken to avoid traffic or being seen

Surface Forms

sidewinder singular
sidewinders plural

Morphology

sidewinder = sidewind (opaque) = side + wind + er

Although '-er' can form a noun from 'sidewind', this sense meaning a specific missile is not derivable from the base meaning and comes via naming after the snake.

Etymology

Sidewinder comes from the snake's odd way of moving: side means 'side' and wind means 'to twist', so the snake 'winds' itself sideways across the sand. That's why a sidewinder is a small rattlesnake known for moving sideways.