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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

weapon.

An instrument of attack or defense in combat or hunting, e.g. most guns, missiles, or swords.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈwɛp.ən/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈwep.ən/Australia, New-Zealand/ˈwiːp.ən/obsolete

  1. An instrument of attack or defense in combat or hunting, e.g. most guns, missiles, or swords.

    The club that is now mostly used for golf was once a common weapon.

  2. An instrument or other means of harming or exerting control over another.

    Money is the main weapon of modern oligarchs.

  3. A tool of any kind.

    humorous · informal
    Choose your weapon.

  4. An idiot, an oaf, a fool, a tool; a contemptible or incompetent person.

    Ireland · UK · derogatory · slang

  5. A very skilled, competent, or capable person or thing worthy of awe.

    Australia · slang

  6. The human genitals.

    rare · slang
Where this word comes from

From Middle English wepen, from Old English wǣpn, from Proto-West Germanic *wāpn, from Proto-Germanic *wēpną (“weapon”), of unknown origin, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *wēbnom. Cognates Cognate with Scots weepon (“weapon”), North Frisian woopen (“weapon”), Saterland Frisian Woapen (“weapon”), West Frisian wapen (“weapon; coat of arms”), Alemannic German Waaffe (“tool”), Dutch wapen (“weapon”), German Waffe (“weapon”) and Wappen (“coat of arms”), Luxembourgish Waff (“weapon”), Yiddish וואָפֿן (vofn, “weapon”), Danish våben (“weapon; coat of arms”), Faroese vákn, vápn (“weapon; whaling lance”), Icelandic vopn (“weapon”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk våpen (“weapon”), Swedish vapen (“weapon; coat of arms”), Gothic 𐍅𐌴𐍀𐌽 (wēpn, “weapon”).

verb/ˈwɛp.ən/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈwep.ən/Australia, New-Zealand/ˈwiːp.ən/obsolete

  1. To equip with a weapon; to arm.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English wepen, from Old English wǣpn, from Proto-West Germanic *wāpn, from Proto-Germanic *wēpną (“weapon”), of unknown origin, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *wēbnom. Cognates Cognate with Scots weepon (“weapon”), North Frisian woopen (“weapon”), Saterland Frisian Woapen (“weapon”), West Frisian wapen (“weapon; coat of arms”), Alemannic German Waaffe (“tool”), Dutch wapen (“weapon”), German Waffe (“weapon”) and Wappen (“coat of arms”), Luxembourgish Waff (“weapon”), Yiddish וואָפֿן (vofn, “weapon”), Danish våben (“weapon; coat of arms”), Faroese vákn, vápn (“weapon; whaling lance”), Icelandic vopn (“weapon”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk våpen (“weapon”), Swedish vapen (“weapon; coat of arms”), Gothic 𐍅𐌴𐍀𐌽 (wēpn, “weapon”).

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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.