zip gun
2
9.9
- noun
- /zɪp ɡʌn/
- NSFW
:
pistola artesanal
- In the 1960s, as a young boy growing up in a South Bronx housing project, I saw graffiti, shattered glass, broken elevators, zip guns, and welfare.
- a homemade zip gun
Examples
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In the movie, the character built a zip gun using everyday materials.
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I took a zip gun off of Little J. tonight.
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All I got is a zip gun.
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What happened to the good old days of zip guns?
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You can make a zip gun with some pipe and a few hand tools.
Blog text (27) -
Zip guns aren't standard issue on federal corrections prisoner transports.
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"It used to be we were fearful of zip guns or low-quality handguns, but now they have firepower equal to our own, and sometimes we're outgunned."
Blog text (13) -
The police found a crude zip gun hidden in the suspect's garage.
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He showed me a zip gun he had made from old plumbing parts.
Synonyms
268
2.1
A small gun you hold and fire with one hand
How Dangerous
Surface Forms
Morphology
zip + gun
The noun 'gun' is clear but the element 'zip' does not have a common meaning that signals 'crudely made' or 'homemade' to a B1 learner (most will know 'zip' as a zipper, a quick movement/sound, or 'nothing'). The combination is idiomatic for an improvised pistol and its specific sense cannot be derived from the constituent meanings, so learners unfamiliar with the term would not predict the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Zip gun may come from the quick 'zip' sound a small, rough gun makes when it fires, and the word zip also suggests something cheap and quickly made. That's why zip gun means 'a homemade pistol made from spare parts'.