big gun
big gun noun: a large artillery gun or one of the largest-caliber naval guns (as on a battleship).
Noun
big gun (plural big guns)
- A large artillery gun or one of the largest-caliber naval guns (as on a battleship).
- London, Nov. 1: The big guns opened fire on Paris today at mid-day.1870 December 2, “The Suez Mail”, in Southland Times, number 1342, New Zealand, page 2
- The smaller crew was possible because the battleship was stripped of all but her big guns.1968 March 26, “Battleship begins Viet Tests”, in Evening News, Newburgh, NY, USA, retrieved 19 Aug 2011, page 1
- Synonyms:
- great gun
- A person, group, thing, or course of action that is powerful, influential, or particularly effective.
- This has been a great day for the big guns. This does not refer to Prof. Lummis and the other big guns of the Board of Visitors, for every day is a great one for them.1888 June 6, “A Great Day for Big Guns”, in New York Times, retrieved 20 Aug 2011
- Berra Is Big Gun In Yankee Victory1957 Aug. 28, Ed Wilks, "Sports" (Headline), Park City News (USA), p. 15 (retrieved 20 Aug. 2011)
- Synonyms:
- big shot, bigwig, baron, big cheese, big enchilada, big kahuna, big man, big name, big noise, big wheel
- A large surfboard used to ride very large, powerful waves.
- Special boards are used called "big guns."1966, Bruce Brown, director, The Endless Summer
big gun meaning in Malayalam
big gun in Malayalam
- big gun
- പീരങ്കി pīraṅki
Examples of big gun in a sentence
- Her big guns pounded the enemy at the battles of Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.2008 December 6, William J. Bennett, John Cribb, “Deadly resolve answered attack”, in Daily Courier, USA, retrieved 19 Aug 2011:
- And the administration's big guns — Bush, Cheney, Powell and once-and-current Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld — had the clout to make bold and necessary changes.2001 June 29, Frank Pellegrini, “Whatever Happened to Military Restructuring?”, in Time:
- Clapton kept the big guns for last, finishing the set off with Derek and the Domino's "Layla", complete with the haunting instrumentals at song's end.2007 March 26, Yuri Wuensch, “Eric Clapton simply masterful”, in canoe.ca, Canada, retrieved 20 Aug 2011:
Synonyms of big gun
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
- big wheel
- boss
- grand poobah
- head honcho
- heavy hitter
- heavyweight
- high muckamuck
- high muckety-muck
- king of all one surveys
- king of the castle
- king of the hill
- kingpin
- macher
- mayor
- muckamuck
- muckety muck
- mugwump
- numero uno
- panjandrum
- poobah
- rooster
- somebody
- top banana
- top boy
- top cat
- top dog
- top gun
- very important person
- VIP
- wheel
Forms of big gun
| plural | big guns |
|---|
Questions about big gun
- What does big gun mean?
- Big gun means a large artillery gun or one of the largest-caliber naval guns (as on a battleship).
- What is big gun in Malayalam?
- Big gun in Malayalam is പീരങ്കി (pīraṅki). See Big gun meaning in Malayalam.
- How do you use big gun in a sentence?
- Her big guns pounded the enemy at the battles of Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.
- What part of speech is big gun?
- Big gun is a noun.
- What is the plural of big gun?
- The plural of big gun is big guns.
Words near big gun in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: big gun (page history and authors); പീരങ്കി (Malayalam) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-big gun.ogg.
Cite this entry: “big gun.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/big_gun. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.