RIFLE
What does "RIFLE" mean?
A long-barrelled firearm with spiral grooves cut inside the barrel to spin and steady the bullet.
Meanings
- A shoulder-fired gun with a rifled (spirally grooved) barrel for accuracy at range. The hunter steadied the rifle against his shoulder.
- To search through something hurriedly, often disturbing the contents or in order to steal. Someone had rifled through her desk drawers.
- To cut spiral grooves inside a gun barrel. The barrel is rifled to give the bullet spin. technical
Did you know?
- The gun and the verb 'to rifle through' share one root: both come from the idea of scraping - the barrel's spiral grooves are literally scraped, or 'rifled', into the metal.
Word origin
The verb 'rifle' (to plunder) came from Old French 'rifler', to scrape or plunder; the gun is named from the same scraping action, for the grooves 'rifled' into its barrel.
Remember it
RIFLE the gun has grooves 'rifled' in; RIFLE the verb scrapes through your drawers - same scraping root.
A little poem
Inside the barrel, grooves wound like a stair;
the bullet learns to spin and so to fly-
true aim is just a twist taught to the air.
tercet
Wordplay
- The detective rifled through the suspect's closet and found, of all things, a rifle.
What it teaches
Accuracy comes from constraint: the bullet flies straight only because the barrel made it spin.
Quick facts
What does RIFLE mean?
A long-barrelled firearm with spiral grooves cut inside the barrel to spin and steady the bullet.
Is RIFLE a valid word?
Yes — RIFLE is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is RIFLE?
RIFLE has 5 letters and 2 syllables.
Where does RIFLE come from?
The verb 'rifle' (to plunder) came from Old French 'rifler', to scrape or plunder; the gun is named from the same scraping action, for the grooves 'rifled' into its barrel.
What can RIFLE teach us?
Accuracy comes from constraint: the bullet flies straight only because the barrel made it spin.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.