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Glite Dictionary
🔫 A gun without grooves 🔫 No grooves inside
smoothbore

smoothbore

1 9.5
A gun with a barrel that is smooth inside and has no spiral grooves
  • noun
  • /ˈsmuːðbɔːr/
  • Specialized
translation icon : arma de cañón liso
  • If you recall, the liberator that was dropped into France by the thousands was more or less a one-shot smoothbore pistol, IIRC.
  • smoothbore musket
  • standard smoothbore

Examples

  • They're out of smoothbore musket range.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • Back at the limber that held the ammunition chest, two more soldiers handed another bag of powder and a ball to a third, who carried them at a run to the man who loaded them into the smoothbore.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • The hunter chose a smoothbore shotgun for its ease of use while shooting at close range.

  • Her father taught her how to operate a smoothbore firearm for hunting small game.

  • Historically, many military weapons were smoothbore cannons, favored for their straightforward design.

Synonyms

scattergun
vssmoothbore
1 7.1

A short-range gun that fires many small pellets

is a barrel type lacking rifling rather than a specific short-range weapon

Surface Forms

smoothbore singular
smoothbores plural

Morphology

smoothbore = smooth + bore (semi-transparent) = smooth + bore

Compound of 'smooth' + 'bore' is literal, but relies on the technical noun 'bore' (barrel interior) which may be unknown to some learners.

Etymology

Smoothbore is formed from smooth 'without roughness' and bore 'a hole or tube'. The name tells you what it is: a firearm with a smooth inside barrel, so it does not give bullets a spin and is usually less accurate than a gun with grooves inside.