rifle.
A firearm fired from the shoulder; improved range and accuracy is provided by a long, rifled barrel.
Meaning & usage
A firearm fired from the shoulder; improved range and accuracy is provided by a long, rifled barrel.
A rifleman.
An artillery piece with a rifled barrel.
A strip of wood covered with emery or a similar material, used for sharpening scythes.
Where this word comes from
Originally short for “rifled gun”, referring to the spiral grooves inside the barrel. From Middle English riflen (“to rob, plunder, search through”), from Old French rifler (“to lightly scratch, scrape off, plunder”), from Old High German riffilōn (compare German riffeln (“to score, make grooves in, ripple”), archaic Dutch rijfelen (“to scrape”), Old English rifelan, riflian (“to wrinkle”)), frequentative of Proto-Germanic *rīfaną (compare Old Norse rífa (“to tear, break”)). More at rive.
To quickly search through many items (such as papers, the contents of a drawer, a pile of clothing).
She made a mess when she rifled through the stack of papers, looking for the title document.
To commit robbery or theft.
To search with intent to steal.
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.
Where this word comes from
Originally short for “rifled gun”, referring to the spiral grooves inside the barrel. From Middle English riflen (“to rob, plunder, search through”), from Old French rifler (“to lightly scratch, scrape off, plunder”), from Old High German riffilōn (compare German riffeln (“to score, make grooves in, ripple”), archaic Dutch rijfelen (“to scrape”), Old English rifelan, riflian (“to wrinkle”)), frequentative of Proto-Germanic *rīfaną (compare Old Norse rífa (“to tear, break”)). More at rive.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.