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Synonyms
- big
- big boy
- big cheese
- big leaguer
- big shot
- big wheel
- big-timer
- bigfoot
- biggie
- bigwig
- fat cat
- heavy
- heavy hitter
- heavyweight
- high-muck-a-muck
- high-muckety-muck
- honcho
- kahuna
- kingfish
- kingpin
- major leaguer
- muckety-muck
- muck-a-muck
- mucky-muck
- nabob
- nawab
- nibs
- nob [chiefly British]
- pooh-bah
- poo-bah
- wheel
Examples of big gun in a Sentence
for a high-profile case like this, the law firm uses only its big guns
Recent Examples on the Web
For Louis, as for Frederick the Great a century later, real power could come only from big battalions and big guns.
—Arjun Chowdhury, Foreign Affairs, 1 July 2010
And Ukraine is getting its big guns ready to resume blasting away.
—David Axe, Forbes, 29 Mar. 2024
This retro-futuristic style comes to life in vivid Technicolor in the series, which feels like the video game come to life in the best way possible, full of exaggerated costumes, cartoonish violence and very big guns.
—Kelly Lawler, USA TODAY, 10 Apr. 2024
By 2023 the five-ton, five-person howitzers—which lob 100-pound, 155-millimeter shells as far as 18 miles without rocket-assistance—were among the best and most important big guns in Ukrainian service.
—David Axe, Forbes, 29 Mar. 2024
Now on its twelfth year, the event has grown from just 100 attendees during its early years to some 3,500 on average, attracting big guns from major networks, studios and platforms worldwide.
—Anna Marie De La Fuente, Variety, 1 Sep. 2023
Looking Ahead Photograph: Apple Apple might be saving its big guns for the Watch X, which is rumored to have all sorts of fun and fancy upgrades.
—Adrienne So, WIRED, 12 Sep. 2023
The prosecutors brought out their big guns in week two of the trial.
—Allison Morrow, CNN, 15 Oct. 2023
In big guns like the L31, caliber means the overall length of the gun in barrel diameters: 155 x 36 = 5,580 millimeters, giving the L31 barrel a length of about 18.3 feet.
—Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 3 Aug. 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'big gun.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
First Known Use
1830, in the meaning defined above
Articles Related to big gun
Dictionary Entries Near big gun
Cite this Entry
“Big gun.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/big%20gun. Accessed 16 Jun. 2024.
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