rifle

Meanings

Noun

• A shouldered firearm with a long, rifled barrel to improve range and accuracy.
• A rifleman.
• An artillery piece with a rifled barrel.
• A strip of wood covered with emery or a similar material, used for sharpening scythes.

Verb

• To quickly search through many items (such as papers, the contents of a drawer, a pile of clothing). (See also riffle^</sup>)
• To commit robbery or theft.
• To search with intent to steal; to ransack, pillage or plunder.
• To strip of goods; to rob; to pillage.
• To seize and bear away by force; to snatch away; to carry off.
• To add a spiral groove to a gun bore to make a fired bullet spin in flight in order to improve range and accuracy.
• To cause (a projectile, as a rifle bullet) to travel in a flat ballistic trajectory.
• To move in a flat ballistic trajectory (as a rifle bullet).
• To dispose of in a raffle.
• To engage in a raffle.

Origin

• Originally short for “rifled gun”, referring to the spiral grooves inside the barrel. From Middle English, from Old French rifler, from Old Dutch *riffilōn (compare archaic Dutch rijfelen, Old English geriflian), frequentative of Proto-Germanic *rīfaną (compare Old Norse rífa). More at rive.