machine gun

• IPA^(key): /məˈʃiːn ɡʌn/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

machine gun (plural machine guns)

2. A type of fully automatic firearm that fires bullets in rapid succession by a single action of the trigger and is capable of sustained fire.

   Alternative form: MG (initialism)

   Hypernyms: firearm < gun < weapon

   Hyponyms: HMG, heavy machine gun, MMG, medium machine gun, GPMG, general-purpose machine gun, LMG, light machine gun, SMG, submachine gun

   • 1974, “I'm Gonna Get You”, performed by Eleanore Mills:

     I'm gonna get you, baby / Like a machine gun, I'm gonna… Tak-Tak-Tak-Tak-Tak

   • 2013 July 20, “Old soldiers?”, in The Economist‎^[1], volume 408, number 8845:

     Whether modern, industrial man is less or more warlike than his hunter-gatherer ancestors is impossible to determine. The machine gun is so much more lethal than the bow and arrow that comparisons are meaningless.

   • 2016 December 23, Lam Yik Fei, “World - Image”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 19 April 2023‎^[3]:

     Brigadier John K. Lawson's bunker on the west side of Wong Nai Chung Gap that the West Brigade used as headquarters. Brigadier Lawson and three of his men were hit by machine-gun fire escaping from the bunker on Dec. 19, 1941.

• → Japanese: マシンガン
• → Malay: mesingan
• → Māori: pū mīhini (calque)
• → Tagalog: masinggan

• chain gun