Word.ws English Dictionary

handgun

US/ˈhændˌɡʌn/

handgun noun: a small gun with a relatively short barrel, designed to be held and operated with a single hand.

handgun: a small gun with a relatively short barrel, designed to be held and operated with a single hand
Image: Joshuashearn, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

handgun (plural handguns)

  1. A small gun with a relatively short barrel, designed to be held and operated with a single hand.
    • Petric used his father's key to open a lockbox and remove a 9mm handgun and the game.2009 January 13, M. R. Kropko, “Video-game addiction rejected as defence”, in Toronto Star
    • A related design and marketing innovation has been the sale to civilians of “vest busters,” handguns specifically designed to penetrate body armor.2013, Tom Diaz, The Last Gun: How Changes in the Gun Industry are Killing Americans and what it Will Take to Stop it, page 166
    Synonyms:
    pistol[Appendix:Glossary, burner, heater, gat

handgun meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada

handgun in Hindi

handgun; pistol
तमंचा tamañcā

handgun in Tamil

கரச்சுடுகலன்

handgun in Malayalam

gun, pistol, revolver
കെെത്തോക്ക്, തോക്ക്, മെയ്ത്തോക്ക്, പിത്തോക്ക്, ചെറുതോക്ക്, പിസ്റ്റൽ

handgun in Kannada

ಕಯ್ಕೋವಿ
More languagesFewer languages
handgun in Arabic
مُسَدَّس musaddas, فَرْد fard
handgun in Indonesian
beceng, senpi tangan
handgun in Persian
تپانچه tapânče

Examples of handgun in a sentence

  • This town is really dangerous because these youngsters have Beretta handguns.
  • The policeman was concerned that the lost handgun would fall into the wrong hands.
  • A husband, wife, boyfriend or girlfriend who buys a handgun on behalf of their significant other is carrying out a straw purchase.

All 18 example sentences with handgun

Synonyms of handgun

Forms of handgun

pluralhandguns

Plural of handgun: handguns

Origin of handgun

From hand + gun.

Words formed from handgun

Questions about handgun

What does handgun mean?
Handgun means a small gun with a relatively short barrel, designed to be held and operated with a single hand.
What is handgun in Hindi?
Handgun in Hindi is तमंचा (tamañcā). See Handgun meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is handgun?
Handgun is a noun.
How do you pronounce handgun?
Handgun is pronounced /ˈhændˌɡʌn/ (US).
What is the plural of handgun?
The plural of handgun is handguns.

Words near handgun in the dictionary

  1. handgrips
  2. handguard
  3. handguards
  4. handguide
  5. handguides
  6. handgun
  7. handgunner
  8. handgunners
  9. handguns
  10. handhabend
  11. handheld

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: handgun (page history and authors); तमंचा (Hindi) (page history and authors); handgun (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); handgun (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); handgun (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-handgun.wav.

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