gunfire

Noun

gunfire (usually uncountable, plural gunfires)

1. (usually) Shots from a gun or guns, typically creating loud report.
   • Let's hide in the trees to avoid the gunfire.
   • Sergeant, direct your gunfire toward that copse of trees.
2. (usually) The use of gunpowder-type weapons, mainly cannon, as opposed to swords or bayonets.
   • Killing people became much easier and faster once armies started using gunfire.
3. (usually) The time of firing of the morning gun or the evening gun.
   • Art. 33. All Plying boats, with the exception of two which are to be weekly appoin[t]ed by the Chief Commissary of Police and Harbour Master, and at gunfire in the evening to be placed in a tier alongside of the Quay or at a place to be pointed out by these Officers and fastened by a claim and a...1851, W. Draper Bolton, Bolton's Mauritius almanac, and official directory
   • The grand event on the 14th was the shooting for the second stage for the Queen's prize. This commenced punctually at gunfire in the morning : the men being divided into four squads at the long ranges on the north side of the common.1864, Edmund Burke, editor, The Annual Register; A review of public events at home and abroad, for the year 1863
4. (slang, usually) Tea, a cup of tea, especially one served early in the morning before first parade.
   • They had only in them the rolled mattresses, the neatly piled bed-boards and the empty tea-buckets of the orderly-men, empied of their last gun-fire.1937, David Jones, In Parenthesis, I