Word.ws English Dictionary

keyholing

keyholing is the present participle and gerund of keyhole.

Noun

keyholing (uncountable)

  1. The tendency of a bullet fired down an excessively large barrel to wobble in flight and leave a keyhole-shaped puncture in the target.
  2. The formation of a transient column of vapor or plasma when using high energy beams, such as lasers, for welding or cutting.

Meaning of keyhole

Verb

keyhole (third-person singular simple present keyholes, present participle keyholing, simple past and past participle keyholed)

  1. To strike a target after wobbling in flight so that the long axis of the bullet does not follow the line of flight, typically due to insufficient spin resulting from the rifling in the barrel.

See all 11 meanings of keyhole

Origin of keyholing

From keyhole + -ing.

Questions about keyholing

What does keyholing mean?
Keyholing means the tendency of a bullet fired down an excessively large barrel to wobble in flight and leave a keyhole-shaped puncture in the target.
What is keyholing the present participle and gerund of?
Keyholing is the present participle and gerund of keyhole.
What part of speech is keyholing?
Keyholing is a noun.

Words near keyholing in the dictionary

  1. keyhole urchins
  2. keyhole wound
  3. keyhole wounds
  4. keyholed
  5. keyholes
  6. keyholing
  7. Keyhuvadhoo
  8. Keyi Panyor
  9. keying
  10. keying down
  11. keying in

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: keyholing (page history and authors); keyhole (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: “keyholing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/keyholing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.