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rifle

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: riflé

English

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English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia
a rifle (Mauser FR-8)
spiral grooves of a rifle's barrel

Etymology

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Originally short for “rifled gun”, referring to the spiral grooves inside the barrel. From Middle English riflen (“to rob, plunder, search through”), from Old French rifler (“to lightly scratch, scrape off, plunder”), from Old High German riffilōn (compare German riffeln (“to score, make grooves in, ripple”), archaic Dutch rijfelen (“to scrape”), Old English rifelan, riflian (“to wrinkle”)), frequentative of Proto-Germanic *rīfaną (compare Old Norse rífa (“to tear, break”)). More at rive.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˈɹaɪfəl/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -aɪfəl

Noun

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rifle (plural rifles)

  1. (weaponry) A firearm fired from the shoulder; improved range and accuracy is provided by a long, rifled barrel.
    • 1907 January, Harold Bindloss, chapter 7, in The Dust of Conflict, 1st Canadian edition, Toronto, Ont.: McLeod & Allen, →OCLC:
      Still, a dozen men with rifles, and cartridges to match, stayed behind when they filed through a white aldea lying silent amid the cane, and the Sin Verguenza swung into slightly quicker stride.
    • 1995, Richard Klein, “Introduction”, in Cigarettes are sublime, Paperback edition, Durham: Duke University Press, published 1993, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 8:
      In the June days of 1848 Baudelaire reports seeing revolutionaries (he might have been one of them) going through the streets of Paris with rifles, shooting all the clocks.
  2. (military, usually in the plural, dated) A rifleman.
  3. (weaponry) An artillery piece with a rifled barrel.
  4. A strip of wood covered with emery or a similar material, used for sharpening scythes.

Derived terms

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Descendants

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  • → Catalan: rifle
  • → French: rifle
  • → Japanese: ライフル (raifuru)
  • → Korean: 라이플 (raipeul)
  • → Portuguese: rifle
  • → Spanish: rifle

Translations

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Verb

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rifle (third-person singular simple present rifles, present participle rifling, simple past and past participle rifled)

  1. (intransitive) To quickly search through many items (such as papers, the contents of a drawer, a pile of clothing). (See also riffle[1])
    She made a mess when she rifled through the stack of papers, looking for the title document.
  2. (intransitive) To commit robbery or theft.
  3. (transitive) To search with intent to steal; to ransack, pillage or plunder.
    • 1633, Joseph Hall, A paraphrase upon the hard texts of Scripture:
      thine enemies […] shall ransack and rifle all the things of Edom; and shall search out all thy hidden commodities, and carry them away at once
  4. (transitive) To strip of goods; to rob; to pillage.
  5. (transitive) To seize and bear away by force; to snatch away; to carry off.
  6. (transitive) To add a spiral groove to a gun bore to make a fired bullet spin in flight in order to improve range and accuracy.
  7. (transitive) To cause (a projectile, as a rifle bullet) to travel in a flat ballistic trajectory.
    • 2010 December 28, Marc Vesty, “Stoke 0 - 2 Fulham”, in BBC‎[2]:
      Davies's cross was headed away from danger by Robert Huth, only for Baird to take the ball in his stride and rifle his right-footed effort towards the corner from the edge of the box.
    • 2011 Fighting for Gold: The Story of Canada's Sledge Hockey Paralympic Gold by Lorna Schultz Schultz Nicholson
      But a Norwegian player rifled off a point shot that sailed into the back of the net.
  8. (intransitive) To move in a flat ballistic trajectory (as a rifle bullet).
    • 2014, Alexander Rebelle, Lights of Summer: The Run for Glory:
      The ball rifled off the bat.
  9. (transitive, obsolete) To dispose of in a raffle.
  10. (intransitive, obsolete) To engage in a raffle.

Translations

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References

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Anagrams

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Catalan

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Etymology

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Borrowed from English rifle.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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rifle m (plural rifles)

  1. rifle

Further reading

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French

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Etymology 1

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Borrowed from English rifle. First attested in 1833.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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rifle m (plural rifles)

  1. rifle (carabine)
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Etymology 2

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Pronunciation

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Verb

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rifle

  1. inflection of rifler:
    1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
    2. second-person singular imperative

Further reading

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Anagrams

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Norwegian Bokmål

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Norwegian Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia no

Etymology

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Apparently from Middle Low German or Low German riffel, but compare Danish riffel.

Noun

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rifle f or m (definite singular rifla or riflen, indefinite plural rifler, definite plural riflene)

  1. (firearm) a rifle

Derived terms

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References

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Norwegian Nynorsk

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Etymology

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As above.

Noun

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rifle f (definite singular rifla, indefinite plural rifler, definite plural riflene)

  1. (firearm) a rifle

Derived terms

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References

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Portuguese

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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Borrowed from English rifle, from Middle English, from Old French rifler (“to scrape off, plunder”), from Old Low Franconian Old Dutch *rifillon, frequentative of Proto-Germanic *rīfaną.

Pronunciation

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  • Hyphenation: ri‧fle

Noun

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rifle m (plural rifles)

  1. rifle
    Synonyms: escopeta, espingarda, fuzil, refle

Further reading

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Spanish

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Etymology

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Borrowed from English rifle.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˈrifle/ [ˈri.fle]
  • Rhymes: -ifle
  • Syllabification: ri‧fle

Noun

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rifle m (plural rifles)

  1. rifle
    Synonym: fusil

Further reading

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