Word.ws English Dictionary

hired gun

hired gun noun: a person who is employed as an armed guard, enforcer, or mercenary and who is prepared to use gunplay or similar violent methods in order to assert the interests of their employer.

Noun

hired gun (plural hired guns)

  1. A person who is employed as an armed guard, enforcer, or mercenary and who is prepared to use gunplay or similar violent methods in order to assert the interests of their employer.
    • The hired guns, who protect diplomats, dignitaries and businesspeople, tear through the streets of the capital in convoys of armored SUVs.2008 December 9, Rania Abouzeid, “Iraqis Welcome Blackwater Indictments”, in Time
    Synonyms:
    gunfighter
  2. (broadly, idiomatic) A person who is employed to advance the interests of their employer, especially in a vigorous manner using such methods as political lobbying, legal advocacy, or persuasion.
    • [O]ne of Gore's senior advisers, top-tier lobbyist Peter Knight, is a hired gun for pharmaceuticals giant Schering-Plough.1999 November 22, Viveca Novak, “The Claritin Case”, in Time

Synonyms of hired gun

Forms of hired gun

pluralhired guns

Questions about hired gun

What does hired gun mean?
Hired gun means a person who is employed as an armed guard, enforcer, or mercenary and who is prepared to use gunplay or similar violent methods in order to assert the interests of their employer.
What part of speech is hired gun?
Hired gun is a noun.
What is the plural of hired gun?
The plural of hired gun is hired guns.

Words near hired gun in the dictionary

  1. hire purchases
  2. hire system
  3. hireable
  4. hireage
  5. hired
  6. hired gun
  7. hired guns
  8. hired hand
  9. hired hands
  10. hired muscle
  11. hired muscles

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hired 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-hired gun.ogg.

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