Etimology
From Middle English gunne, gonne, from Lady Gunilda, a huge crossbow with a powerful shot, with the second part of the term being of Old Norse origin. It was later used to denote firearms. The name Gunnhildr and its multiple variations are derived from Old Norse gunnr (“battle, war”) + hildr (“battle”), which makes it a pleonasm. In the given context the woman's name means battle maid. See also Hilda, Gunilda, Gunhild, Gunhilda, Gunnhildr.
noun
gun (plural guns)
A device for projecting a hard object very forcefully; a firearm or cannon.
A device operated by a trigger and acting in a manner similar to a firearm.
(surfing) A long surfboard designed for surfing big waves (not the same as a longboard, a gun has a pointed nose and is generally a little narrower).
(cellular automata) A pattern that "fires" out other patterns.
(Can we verify(+) this sense?) (colloquial, metonymically) A person who carries or uses a rifle, shotgun or handgun.
(television) An electron gun.
(colloquial, usually in the plural) The biceps.
(nautical, in the plural) Violent blasts of wind.
(Can we verify(+) this sense?) (colloquial) An expert.
(Australia, slang) Someone excellent, surpassingly wonderful, or cool.
Examples
They burned the old gun that used to stand in the dark corner up in the garret, close to the stuffed fox that always grinned so fiercely. Perhaps the reason why he seemed in such a ghastly rage was that he did not come by his death fairly. Otherwise his pelt would not have been so perfect.
Well, I've always been progun, you know that. It's... yeah, I think adding more guns into a situation is obviously the way to prevent shooting. I think in a way, if we take the guns away, the shootings may escalate. And I think that's why he's so firm on literally arming everyone. I think if you don't have a gun in your hands... well, let's not find out what that world would be.
Guns were considered improvements of crossbows and catapults.
Looking for wild meat to fill his family's freezer for the winter, the young man quietly raised up his gun at the approaching deer.
It was April 22, 1831, and a young man was walking down Whitehall in the direction of Parliament Street. […]. He halted opposite the Privy Gardens, and, with his face turned skywards, listened until the sound of the Tower guns smote again on the ear and dispelled his doubts.
air-pressure pellet gun
zipgun
nail gun
squirt gun
spray gun
grease gun
a rivet gun
screw gun
a price-label gun
by the winter of 1962, the Brewer Surfboards Hawaii gun was the most in-demand big-wave equipment on the North Shore.
The glider gun on the bottom of the NOT circuit emits a continuous stream of gliders, while the data stream source emits a glider only when there is a value of 1 in the stream […] .
It would be especially interesting if someone can find an "airplane gun", which generates airplanes at regular intervals.
Greene's period-416 2c/5 spaceship gun
Some said that the cowboy was the fastest gun in the West.
De Niro plays Frank Sheeran, the real-life South Philly truck driver who moonlighted, over the second half of the 20th century, as a hired gun for the mafia.
The problem is figuring out how to get the electrons from the red gun to hit only the red phosphors, the electrons from the blue gun to hit only the blue phosphors, and so on.
verb
gun (third-person singular simple present guns, present participle gunning, simple past and past participle gunned)
(transitive) To cause to speed up.
(informal) To offer vigorous support to (a person or cause).
(informal) (gunning for something or gunning to do something) make a great effort.
To seek to attack someone; to take aim at someone; used with for.
To practice fowling or hunting small game; chiefly in participial form: to go gunning.
(transitive, intransitive, US, prison slang, of a male prisoner) Synonym of gun down (“to masturbate while making sustained eye contact with someone — typically a female prison officer — as a form of intimidation”).
Examples
He gunned the engine.
We're all gunning for you.
Australian John Landy, one of Bannister’s rivals also gunning to break the four-minute barrier, took more than a second off the Briton’s time in Turku, Finland, a few weeks later.
He's been gunning for you ever since you embarrassed him at the party.
[…] all inmates participated in such conduct, and […] "the inmates gunned only female staff, not the all-male security staff," he said.
Etimology
Related to ganef.
noun
gun (plural guns)
(obsolete, slang) A magsman or street thief.
Examples
To discover […] how the honest poor are compelled to hob-and-nob with the “shoful pitcher” and the “gun,” it is necessary to visit the vast nursery-grounds of crime.
Etimology
From gunna, from gonna, from going to.
verb
gun
Nonstandard spelling of going to.
Examples
I'm gun go get my coat from da closet.