Word.ws English Dictionary

fired the starting gun

fired the starting gun is the simple past and past participle of fire the starting gun.

Meaning of fire the starting gun

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic, often) To launch or trigger an event or situation.
    • The TV and radio star Noel Edmonds, who is expected to join ITV’s I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here jungle camp this week, is also likely to fire the starting gun on a £60m lawsuit against Lloyds Bank.2018 November 19, Kalyeena Makortoff, “Noel Edmonds likely to file £60m Lloyds lawsuit on Wednesday”, in The Guardian

Questions about fired the starting gun

What is fired the starting gun the simple past and past participle of?
Fired the starting gun is the simple past and past participle of fire the starting gun.

Words near fired the starting gun in the dictionary

  1. fired in anger
  2. fired into the sun
  3. fired off
  4. fired on all cylinders
  5. fired out
  6. fired the starting gun
  7. fired up
  8. firedamp
  9. firedamper
  10. firedampers
  11. firedamps

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fired the starting gun (page history and authors); fire the starting gun (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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