gunflash

English

Etymology

gun +‎ flash

Noun

gunflash (plural gunflashes)

1. The flash of a (naval, artillery, tank or hand) gun firing.
   • 1947, As You Were, page 18:

     He picked them out, remembering how he had stared at them every day for a week, trying to pick up the Vichy gunflashes but seeing nothing but the bare heat-shimmering hills; remembering how in the night you could see the gunflashes ...

   • 2014, Alexander Werth, Leningrad, 1943: Inside a City Under Siege, page 44:

     Then the German guns suddenly went off with one or two gunflashes faintly visible to the side of the smoke-screen. The Russians got ready to answer. Somewhere high up, a German shell whined, harmlessly, like a mosquito.

   • 2017, Mark R. Sumner, Walk Like Leather, →ISBN:

     "Williams thinks it's important. I've been watching those gunflashes out there. They've all been to the east or southeast. We've been thinking the war was out there...but I saw single gunflashes...four of them...about south southwest, just before daylight."

Anagrams

• flashgun