a smoothbore gun for firing small shot to kill birds and small quadrupeds, though often used with buckshot to kill larger animals.
2.
Football.an offensive formation, designed primarily for passing situations, in which the backfield is spread out with the quarterback positioned a few yards behind the center and the other backs, as potential pass receivers, positioned as slotbacks or flankers.
adjective
3.
of, pertaining to, used in, or carried out with a shotgun: a shotgun murder; shotgun pellets.
4.
covering a wide area in an irregularly effective manner without concern for details or particulars; tending to be all-inclusive, nonselective, and haphazard; indiscriminate in choice and indifferent to specific results: He favored the shotgun approach in his political attacks.
5.
seeking a desired result through the use or inclusion of a wide variety of elements.
6.
having all the rooms opening one into the next in a line from front to back: shotgun apartment; shotgun cottage.
an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.
a fool or simpleton; ninny.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
the offspring of a zebra and a donkey.
a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.
a children's mummer's parade, as on the Fourth of July, with prizes for the best costumes.
1828, Amer.Eng., from shot in the sense of "lead in small pellets" (1770) + gun. As distinguished from a rifle, which fires bullets. Shotgun wedding first attested 1927, Amer.Eng.
mod. broad; general. : A shotgun approach to a problem like this is useless. You must get specific.
exclam. a phrase called out by someone who claims the privilege of riding in a car's passenger seat. (Usually Shotgun!) : Whoever yelled “shotgun” has to sit holding the cake all the way.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition. Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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