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# 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 →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pistol/#m1)

2) A starting pistol is a toy-like pistol that only makes a loud bang, used to start races. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pistol/#m2)

3) A water pistol is a toy that squirts water. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pistol/#m3)

### 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 →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pistol/#x1)
- We had a water pistol fight in the garden. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pistol/#x2)
- If you ever see a pistol lying around, don't touch it and tell an adult. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pistol/#x3)
- The police officer carried a pistol on her belt. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pistol/#x4)
- In the old story two men fought a duel with pistols. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pistol/#x5)
- Pirates in films often carry a pistol and a sword. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pistol/#x6)
- My water pistol holds half a litre of water. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pistol/#x7)
- He had three silver cups, two handsome pistols, and a silver coffee-pot. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pistol/#x8)

### 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.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/35-willows-ch3-part3-snow-in-the-wild-wood/9/)
- [The Rat let him sleep, and «lay patiently waiting, with a pistol in his paw».](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/35-willows-ch3-part3-snow-in-the-wild-wood/32/)
- [Badger thinks they are being attacked from behind and nearly fires his pistol!](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/70-willows-ch12-part1-the-secret-passage-at-night/6/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «pistol» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/pistol/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.