Word.ws English Dictionary

firing the starting gun

firing the starting gun is the present participle and gerund 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 firing the starting gun

What is firing the starting gun the present participle and gerund of?
Firing the starting gun is the present participle and gerund of fire the starting gun.

Words near firing the starting gun in the dictionary

  1. firing ranges
  2. firing solution
  3. firing solutions
  4. firing squad
  5. firing squads
  6. firing the starting gun
  7. firing up
  8. Firinghee
  9. Firinghees
  10. firingi
  11. firingis

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: firing 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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