machine-gun

verb

machine-gunned; machine-gunning; machine-guns

transitive verb

: to shoot at, wound, or kill (someone or something) with a machine gun

… machine-gunned a marauding gang of terrorists outside the U.S. embassy …

—Terry Eagleton

A few years later someone machine-gunned to death the prosecutor who wanted to try the group for killing the soldiers.

—Paul Berman

machine gunner noun

or less commonly machine-gunner

plural machine gunners also machine-gunners

These battalions were composed of the hardened infantrymen—riflemen, machine gunners, grenadiers, and mortarmen—who carried the main burden of the war.

—Shelby L. Stanton

Examples of machine-gun in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Armed guards patrolled federal buildings; machine-gun-toting snipers perched on rooftops. —Sarita Gupta, Time, 2 June 2026

As seen in a recent action in Kupiansk, machine-gun robots can provide suppressive fire so the others can get through. —David Hambling, Forbes.com, 14 May 2026

Iranian speed boats raking ships with machine-gun fire in the Strait of Hormuz. —Jon Gambrell, Fortune, 24 Apr. 2026

Senior Lieutenant Ivan Kavun, the commander of a machine-gun platoon in the 30th Mechanized Brigade, spent 486 days in a frontline deployment, according to his unit. —Daria Tarasova-Markina, CNN Money, 20 Apr. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1894, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

machine gun

noun

: an automatic gun capable of continuous firing

machine-gun verb

machine gunner noun