pistol

«pistol» in Mova's school dictionary: a small gun that you hold and fire with one hand — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 3 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a pistol, pistols)

meaning for a pupil

1) A pistol is a small gun that you hold and fire with one hand. tree →

2) A starting pistol is a toy-like pistol that only makes a loud bang, used to start races. tree →

3) A water pistol is a toy that squirts water. tree →

sense in the lessons

In safety lessons the message is: a real pistol is dangerous; if you find a gun, do not touch it, leave the place and tell an adult. On sports day a starting pistol starts a race. In history stories pistols appear in duels and in police and army life; in police news the word tells the reader a weapon was involved.

examples

• The race began with a bang from the starting pistol. tree →
• We had a water pistol fight in the garden. tree →
• If you ever see a pistol lying around, don't touch it and tell an adult. tree →
• The police officer carried a pistol on her belt. tree →
• In the old story two men fought a duel with pistols. tree →
• Pirates in films often carry a pistol and a sword. tree →
• My water pistol holds half a litre of water. tree →
• He had three silver cups, two handsome pistols, and a silver coffee-pot. tree →

note

Countable: a pistol, two pistols. "Pistol" is a handgun; a rifle is long and held with two hands. Do not confuse with "pistil", the female part of a flower, which sounds the same. Toy and starting pistols are not real weapons, but treat anything that looks like a real gun with care.

In the corpora

• The Rat's laughter and his gleaming pistols cheer the Mole up.
• The Rat let him sleep, and «lay patiently waiting, with a pistol in his paw».
• Badger thinks they are being attacked from behind and nearly fires his pistol!

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «pistol» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.