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# shotgun

«shotgun» in Mova's school dictionary: **A long gun that fires many small metal balls at once…** — 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 shotgun, shotguns); in phrases «call shotgun» (US slang)

### meaning for a pupil

1) A long gun that fires many small metal balls at once, used for hunting birds. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shotgun/#m1)

2) (US, Canada, Australia, slang) «Shotgun!» is what children shout to claim the front seat of a car. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shotgun/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

In everyday life, children call «shotgun» to sit in front. In stories and news, shotguns are dangerous weapons. Safety: never touch a gun; tell an adult. Phrases: call shotgun, ride shotgun, shotgun wedding (old slang).

### examples

- Shotgun! I'm sitting in the front! [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shotgun/#x1)
- My brother always calls shotgun first. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shotgun/#x2)
- The farmer kept a shotgun to scare foxes. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shotgun/#x3)
- Never touch a gun if you find one; tell an adult. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shotgun/#x4)
- He rode shotgun on the long trip. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shotgun/#x5)
- Shotguns are used to hunt ducks. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shotgun/#x6)
- The big man had been wakened by the noise, and had fired both barrels of a shotgun into Nag just behind the hood. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shotgun/#x7)

### note

Countable. «Ride shotgun» comes from old wagons where a guard sat next to the driver. Safety: guns are never toys.

### In the corpora

- ["Shotgun wedding" means a wedding hurried because a baby is on the way (jokey).](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/12-birth-and-couples/4/)

### Trees and pragmatics

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