halfcock
halfcock noun: the position when the cock of a gun is at the first notch.
Noun
halfcock (uncountable)
- The position when the cock of a gun is at the first notch.
- This was bad both for the alibi reshoots it caused and subsequent delays in a match, but if the hammer fell to halfcock enough times, the half-cock notch would mar the sear tip, adversely affecting trigger pull.2010, Patrick Sweeney, 1911 The First 100 Years: The First 100 Years
Verb
halfcock (third-person singular simple present halfcocks, present participle halfcocking, simple past and past participle halfcocked)
Forms of halfcock
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| alternative form | half cock |
| alternative form | half-cock |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | halfcocks |
| present participle | halfcocking |
| past participle | halfcocked |
| past | halfcocked |
Origin of halfcock
From half + cock.
Words formed from halfcock
Phrases with halfcock
Questions about halfcock
- What does halfcock mean?
- Halfcock means the position when the cock of a gun is at the first notch.
- What part of speech is halfcock?
- Halfcock can be a noun or a verb.
Words near halfcock in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: halfcock (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: “halfcock.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/halfcock. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.