shooting iron
1
8.6
- noun
- /ˈʃuːtɪŋ ˈaɪərn/
- Archaic
:
pistola
- Strap on your shooting iron, pardner.
Examples
-
You won't need that shooting iron.
-
Well, I'm gonna give you a shooting iron lesson, little lady, and I want you to listen real good, 'cause there ain't nothing to it.
-
One thing for sure, that shooting iron was no .45 automatic.
-
Next time you come snooping around, you better strap on a shooting iron!
-
Watson got out of bed and poked his shooting iron through the window.
Fiction book (1990) -
Wasn't it he who brought the shooting irons to your tavern door in the first place?
-
Watson's fury was so raw that Winky got him a bad scare, knowing there was a shooting iron under that coat.
Fiction book (1990) -
Just imagine Cheney hosing down Texas with a detachable magazine-fed, self-loading shooting iron!
Blog text (25) -
And they certainly aren't about to endorse freedom to the extent that one might, say, be free to grab our shooting irons and use those annoying libertarians for target practice.
Blog text (15) -
In an old western movie, the sheriff was known for his quick draw and his reliable shooting iron.
Synonyms
268
2.1
A small gun you hold and fire with one hand
258
4.5
A gun a person can hold and fire by hand
187
4.6
A small gun that you hold and fire with one hand
71
3.6
A small gun with a cylinder that holds several bullets so you can fire many times without reloading
20
4.6
A small gun carried at a person's side for protection
A small gun that often appears in old stories
How Powerful
Surface Forms
Morphology
The constituent 'shooting' clearly signals the domain of firearms, so a learner who knows both words might infer the phrase refers to a metal object used for shooting and therefore guess a weapon. However, 'iron' does not literally mean 'gun' in regular composition—the firearm sense is slang/metaphorical and requires lexicalized knowledge rather than straightforward derivation.
Etymology
Shooting iron comes from the American Wild West, where people called a metal gun an iron and used shooting to show it was the thing that fired bullets. That's why shooting iron means 'handgun' today.