machine gun
101
3.5
- noun
- /məˈʃin ɡʌn/
- NSFW
:
ametralladora
- The soldiers were equipped with machine guns to defend the base during the attack.
- machine gun fire
- heavy machine gun
- automatic machine gun
And that's where all the Germans were standing up there with cannons and machine guns firing down.
- And that's where all the Germans were standing up there with cannons and machine guns firing down.
- Cox had a gun and a machine gun he wasn't licensed for.
- And we walked by people that were dressed as army men with machine guns.
- If you press the button and more than one round happens, it's a machine gun.
- So I've seen the a vehicle with four men in it with a machine gun on the back coming towards the airfield.
- Example, let's say there's five of us and sergeant's like charge that machine gun nest and I charge it and I got cut down.
- But in those trenches with a machine gun, bullets whizzing, those guys were tough.
- You getting off of work, you can't get off of work without being met by machine guns in your face.
- Just Dateline NBC machine gun preacher Joseph Kony.
- Donna told the police about the machine gun, went round to my mum's house.
- But like, you don't want people don't want machine guns or like rocket launchers, do they?
- They're heavily armed with PKM type machine guns, one out of Mini.
- you know, They went from swords to guns to machine guns to rockets to drones, you know,
Examples
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I sent a few men with machine guns down to the waterfront.
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They are supported by tanks, artillery and machine guns.
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Only this time there are men with machine guns standing guard directly outside it.
Fiction book (1994) -
By neutralizing the machine gun yourself and then here.
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The group was well armed with a Hotchkiss machine gun and land mines.
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They got cannons, they got machine guns.
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They'd heard he had a machine gun and didn't want to take any risks.
Fiction book (1990) -
But in those trenches with a machine gun, bullets whizzing, those guys were tough.
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We have 8,000 men with 50 pieces of artillery... and a few hundred mortars and machine guns.
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Oliver swings his gun around and sprays machine gun fire at them, killing them both.
Fiction book (1994)
Synonyms
4
8.9
A gun with several barrels that turn and fire quickly
1
7.9
A machine gun that fires bullets very fast and people use on vehicles or planes
1
4.9
An automatic gun that one soldier can carry and use
1
5.1
A gun that keeps loading and shooting as long as you hold the trigger
1
3.9
A weapon that reloads and keeps firing while you hold the trigger
1
9.9
A late 1800s machine that fires bullets automatically for soldiers
A belt-fed machine gun used by US forces in World War II and the Korean War
How Powerful
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'machine' modifies 'gun' to indicate a gun that operates by mechanical/automatic means, so a learner who knows 'machine' and 'gun' can infer an automatic firearm. This compound pattern is common cross-linguistically (e.g. German Maschinengewehr) and follows straightforward English noun-noun composition, making it immediately understandable to B1 learners.
Etymology
Machine gun comes from putting machine and gun together: early inventors made guns that worked like machines and could fire many bullets in a row without stopping. So, today machine gun means 'a gun that fires automatically and very fast'.