smoking gun

smoking gun

noun
indisputable proof or evidence of a crime.

Origin:
1970–75
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Smoking gun is always a great word to know.
So is flibbertigibbet. Does it mean:
a chattering or flighty, light-headed person.
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.
Collins
World English Dictionary
smoking gun
 
n
a piece of irrefutable incriminating evidence

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Slang Dictionary

smoking gun definition


  1. n.
    the indisputable sign of guilt. : The chief of staff decided that the admiral should be found with the smoking gun.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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American Heritage
Idioms & Phrases

smoking gun

Something that serves as indisputable evidence or proof, especially of a crime. For example, There is no smoking gun in the Oval Office; the President had no role in tampering with the evidence. This expression alludes to the smoke coming from a recently discharged firearm, a normal occurrence until the invention of smokeless powder. [Mid-1900s]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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