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Glite Dictionary
gun barrel

gun barrel

5 3.9
A long metal tube in a gun that a bullet travels through when fired
  • noun
  • /ɡʌn ˈbɛrəl/
translation icon : cañón
  • The soldier aimed his weapon carefully, ensuring the gun barrel was aligned with the target.
  • tank's gun barrel
  • machine gun barrel
  • hot gun barrel

If you woke up that morning and you saw a gun barrel through your window, would you not grab your gun if you had it and shoot?

Examples

  • "Tom gestured with the gun barrel toward the overturned bed."

    Fiction book (1992)

  • Lucas started toward the door, gun barrel up, finger off the trigger.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • Well, I saw your gun barrel sticking out that window.

    El Dorado (1966)

  • When mass production arrived, a gun barrel ceased to be the product of an individual artist.

    Academic text (2007)

  • Note the forward main gun turret and gun barrel in the lower left.

    Blog text (11)

  • There was not a flicker of light on the gun barrel.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • And in case you didn't know, gun barrels are not smooth.

  • We found this old German gun barrel and some Russian shells of approximately the same caliber.

    55 Days at Peking (1963)

  • The man spun around, putting the gun barrel against the side of Sadler's head.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • From this angle, the tank, with its large protruding gun barrel, resembles a giant rhinoceros.

    Fiction book (1990)

Synonyms

barrel
vsgun barrel
107 4.6

A long metal tube in a gun that the bullet travels through when fired

is the same meaning but uses a compound specifying guns
bore
vsgun barrel
  • Specialized
21 6.0

A hole made by drilling, often the inside of a pipe or tube

is the whole long metal tube through which a bullet travels

Surface Forms

gun barrel singular
gun barrels plural

Morphology

gun + barrel

The meaning is directly compositional: combining 'gun' (a firearm) with 'barrel' (a cylindrical tube) yields the tube of a firearm through which a projectile travels. This noun–noun composition is a straightforward, cross-linguistically common referential pattern, so a B1 learner who knows both words will readily infer the MWE meaning.

Etymology

Gun barrel names the long metal part of a gun called the barrel, a straight 'tube' the bullet travels through when the gun is fired. So gun barrel today simply means that long metal tube at the front of a gun.