ride shotgun

English

WOTD – 16 May 2020

Etymology

An illustration of an attempt to kill Charles J. Guiteau, the assassin of U.S. President James A. Garfield in 1881, by shooting at his prison van. A police officer who is riding shotgun (sense 1) returns fire.

Possibly from early-20th-century depictions in books and films of the 19th-century practice of a person armed with a rifle or shotgun riding next to a stagecoach driver to provide protection from bandits, etc.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌɹaɪd ˈʃɒtɡʌn/
• IPA^(key): /ˌɹaɪd ˈʃɑtɡʌn/

• Audio (AU):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: ride shot‧gun

Verb

ride shotgun (third-person singular simple present rides shotgun, present participle riding shotgun, simple past rode shotgun, past participle ridden shotgun)

1. (US, idiomatic) To accompany the driver of a vehicle on a journey as an armed escort (originally with a shotgun); (by extension) to accompany someone in order to assist and protect.

   He attended the meeting to ride shotgun for the sales team, in case anyone had a technical question.

   • 1905 April, Alfred Henry Lewis, “The Worries of Mr. Holiday”, in The Sunset Trail, New York, N.Y.: A[lfred] S[mith] Barnes & Co., →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi] Burt Company, publishers, July 1906, →OCLC, page 349:

     Wyatt and Morgan Earp were in the service of the Express Company. They went often as guards—"riding shotgun," it was called—when the stage bore unusual treasure.

   • 1913, Alfred Henry Lewis, “Old Monte, Official Drunkard”, in Faro Nell and Her Friends: Wolfville Stories, New York, N.Y.: G. W. Dillingham Company, →OCLC, page 105:

     Him drivin' stage that a-way, he ain't expected none to fight. [...] That's why, when the stage is stopped, the driver's never downed. Which if thar's money aboard, an' the express outfit wants it defended, they slams on some sport to ride shotgun that trip. It's for this shotgun speshulist to give the route agents an argyooment.

2. (US, idiomatic, by extension, slang) To ride in the front passenger seat of a vehicle, next to the driver.

   When both kids want to ride shotgun with Mom, they’ll just have to take turns.

   • 2018 December 25, Austin Murphy, “I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon.”, in Jeffrey Goldberg, editor, The Atlantic‎^[2], Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 22 October 2019:

     Before sending me out alone, the company assigned me two "ride-alongs" with its top driver, the legendary Marco, who went out with 280 packages the second day I rode shotgun with him, took his full lunch break, did not roll through a single stop sign, and was finished by sundown.

Coordinate terms

• ride bitch

Related terms

• shotgun

Translations

to accompany the driver of a vehicle on a journey as an armed escort

• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

to accompany someone on a journey in order to assist and protect

• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

to ride in the front passenger seat of a vehicle, next to the driver

• Italian: andare in auto seduto davanti, scortare (it)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

Further reading

• riding shotgun on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “to ride shotgun” in “ride, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, June 2010.
• “ride shotgun, phrase”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “shotgun”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.