Word.ws English Dictionary

M-16

M-16 noun: a lightweight assault rifle, originating from the Vietnam War period.

Noun

M-16 (plural M-16s)

  1. (US) A lightweight assault rifle, originating from the Vietnam War period.
    • Not long after it started selling M-16s to the military, Colt began marketing the semi-automatic AR-15 to civilians.2017 December 14, David Heath, Elise Hansen and AJ Willingham, CNN Design: Joyce Tseng, “How an ‘ugly,’ unwanted weapon became the most popular rifle in America”, in CNN
    • The legislation specifically bans several AR-15 style weapons by name. The weapons — semi-automatic variants of the M-4 and M-16 type weapons issued to US troops — have been used in a plethora of shootings in the past few years, including the October 27 attack on the Tree of Life synagogue.2018 December 17, Evan Simko-Bednarski and Taylor Romine, “Pittsburgh City Council to consider ban on assault weapons, bump stocks”, in CNN
    Synonyms:
    AR-15, AR

Synonyms of M-16

Forms of M-16

pluralM-16s
alternative formM16

Questions about M-16

What does M-16 mean?
M-16 means a lightweight assault rifle, originating from the Vietnam War period.
What part of speech is M-16?
M-16 is a noun.
What is the plural of M-16?
The plural of M-16 is M-16s.

Words near M-16 in the dictionary

  1. m*therfucker
  2. m*therfuckers
  3. M+A
  4. m-
  5. M-1
  6. M-16
  7. M-16s
  8. M-1s
  9. M-4
  10. M-4s
  11. m-ary

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: M-16 (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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