rifle

«rifle» in Mova's school dictionary: A long gun fired from the shoulder, with spiral grooves… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a rifle, rifles); verb (rifle, rifles, rifled, rifling)

meaning for a pupil

1) A long gun fired from the shoulder, with spiral grooves inside the barrel so the bullet spins and flies straight. tree →

2) (verb) To search quickly and roughly through something, often to steal: «The burglar rifled through the drawers.» tree →

3) (verb, sport) To hit or kick a ball very hard and straight: «He rifled the ball into the net.» tree →

sense in the lessons

Soldiers, hunters and farmers use rifles; in history the rifle changed wars. In stories, «rifled through» shows someone searching messily or secretly. Safety: real guns are never toys; if you find one, do not touch it, leave and tell an adult. In football or cricket reports, «rifled» means hit hard.

examples

• The soldier carried a rifle on his shoulder. tree →
• Someone had rifled through my schoolbag. tree →
• She rifled through the cupboard looking for her shoes. tree →
• The striker rifled the ball into the top corner. tree →
• Farmers in Australia may use a rifle to protect sheep from foxes. tree →
• Never touch a rifle or any gun; tell an adult straight away. tree →
• So he took up a rifle which he had laid at his bedside. tree →

note

The noun is countable. «Rifle» (search) and «rifle» (gun) are the same spelling with different meanings. Do not confuse with «riffle» (to flick through pages quickly).

In the corpora

• Mole comes back with an armful of rifles.

Trees and pragmatics

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