RIFLE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Rifle

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/rˈaɪfəl/ Listen

noun

Rifle n.

A gun, the inside of whose barrel is grooved with spiral channels, thus giving the ball a rotary motion and insuring greater accuracy of fire. As a military firearm it has superseded the musket.

pl. (Mil.) A body of soldiers armed with rifles.

A strip of wood covered with emery or a similar material, used for sharpening scythes.

Rifle pit (Mil.), a trench for sheltering sharpshooters.

verb

Rifle v. t. (past & past part. rifled; pres. part. rifling)

To seize and bear away by force; to snatch away; to carry off. "Till time shall rifle every youthful grace."

To strip; to rob; to pillage. "Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about ye: If not, we'll make you sit and rifle you."

To raffle. (Obs.)

Rifle v. t.

To grove; to channel; especially, to groove internally with spiral channels; as, to rifle a gun barrel or a cannon.

To whet with a rifle. See Rifle, n., 3.

Rifle v. i.

To raffle. (Obs.)

To commit robbery. (R.)

See images of 'Rifle'

Etymology of 'Rifle'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Rifle" Quotes from Famous Books

... but after you have left our settlements you must not then depend upon me any longer, nor upon the God I serve. You must meet the doom you have labored for.... After this season, when this ignorant army has passed off, I shall never again say to a man, 'Stay your rifle ball,' when our enemies assail us, but shall say, 'Slay ...

— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... Tom to go with you, Alec," went on Mr. Swift, as he resumed his chair, the young inventor in his airship having passed out of sight. "He's busy on some new invention now, I believe. I think I heard him say something about a new rifle." ...

— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton

... thicker leafage below, striding fast, or staying to lend hands from stone to stone or around the patches of wet ground. The woods echo with the noise of the brook, and now and then with the crack of a distant rifle; and finally we are down again to the first hut and taverner and the Cerizet fall. Now the ladies can spring comfortably up to their saddles once more, and the carriage-road is a welcome change from the lumpy bridle-path ...

— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... endeavours of Mr. Harry Boyce to be a man of honour! Mr. Harry Boyce should have stayed in his garret with his small beer and his rind of cheese. He was fit for nothing better, born to be a servitor, an usher. And he must needs claim Alison Lambourne for his desires and rifle her beauty! Oh, it was good to make an end of life if only he could forget her, forget her as she lay ...

— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey

... damage in spite of the spotting by German aeroplanes; and when the German infantry came forward in massed formation, they discovered that their shelling had had no effect upon the moral of our troops or the accuracy of their rifle-fire. The Germans fought, of course, with obstinate courage and advanced again and again into the murderous fire of our rifles and machine guns and against occasional bayonet charges. But their own ...

— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

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