Word.ws English Dictionary

dry-fire

dry-fire is the alternative form of dry fire.

Meaning of dry fire

Verb

dry fire (third-person singular simple present dry fires, present participle dry firing, simple past and past participle dry fired)

  1. To discharge a weapon without ammunition in the chamber.
    • Rob finished cleaning his empty gun then pointed it at an imaginary target and dry fired.2009, Debra Parmley, A Desperate Journey, →ISBN, page 32
  2. To draw and release a bow without an arrow loaded.

Forms of dry-fire

third-person singular presentdry-fires
present participledry-firing
past participledry-fired
pastdry-fired

Questions about dry-fire

What is dry-fire the alternative form of?
Dry-fire is the alternative form of dry fire.

Words near dry-fire in the dictionary

  1. dry-curing
  2. dry-dock
  3. dry-docks
  4. dry-erase
  5. dry-eyed
  6. dry-fire
  7. dry-fired
  8. dry-fires
  9. dry-firing
  10. dry-fisted
  11. dry-foot

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dry-fire (page history and authors); dry fire (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.

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Cite this entry: “dry-fire.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dry-fire. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.