gun show
- noun
- /ɡʌn ʃoʊ/
- US
- This particular weapon was purchased at a gun show earlier this year.
- gun show sales
- effect of gun shows
- gun shows occur
Like if you go there, whether you're a spectator, A purchaser, you're you have a gun show, you're speaking there.
- Like if you go there, whether you're a spectator, A purchaser, you're you have a gun show, you're speaking there.
Examples
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In most urban areas, gun shows occur less than once a month.
Academic text (2010) -
It's gun show season in Virginia.
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I got two tickets to the gun show.
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Welcome to the gun show!
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Okay, so I went to a small gun show this afternoon.
Blog text (20) -
You know, there's a gun show in a few weeks.
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He went to a gun show last week.
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I attended a SAXET gun show yesterday at the local fairgrounds.
Blog text (22) -
Large general-purpose gun shows involve hundreds of gun vendors, and individual vendors may have more than 1,000 new guns on display.
Academic text (2010) -
Last weekend, I attended a large gun show where vendors displayed various firearms for sale.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'an event where firearms are displayed or sold' is directly compositional from 'gun' (firearm) + 'show' (a public event), following a common noun+noun compound pattern. This literal, cross-linguistically familiar construction makes the sense immediately inferable to a B1 learner who knows both constituent words.
Etymology
The name gun show comes from the simple image of people putting their guns on tables at a public show, like a 'car show' but for firearms. Because visitors come to look, 'buy' and 'sell' guns there, the phrase means an event where firearms are displayed and traded.