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

2) (verb) To search quickly and roughly through something, often to steal: «The burglar rifled through the drawers.» [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/rifle/#m2)

3) (verb, sport) To hit or kick a ball very hard and straight: «He rifled the ball into the net.» [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/rifle/#m3)

### 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 →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/rifle/#x1)
- Someone had rifled through my schoolbag. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/rifle/#x2)
- She rifled through the cupboard looking for her shoes. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/rifle/#x3)
- The striker rifled the ball into the top corner. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/rifle/#x4)
- Farmers in Australia may use a rifle to protect sheep from foxes. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/rifle/#x5)
- Never touch a rifle or any gun; tell an adult straight away. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/rifle/#x6)
- So he took up a rifle which he had laid at his bedside. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/rifle/#x7)

### 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.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/71-willows-ch12-part2-the-battle-of-toad-hall/8/)

### Trees and pragmatics

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