Word.ws English Dictionary

opening gun

opening gun noun: the initial event that triggers a subsequent chain of events.

Noun

opening gun (plural opening guns)

  1. The initial event that triggers a subsequent chain of events.
    • the opening gun in the '48 presidential campaign

Forms of opening gun

pluralopening guns

Origin of opening gun

Metaphor from warfare.

Questions about opening gun

What does opening gun mean?
Opening gun means the initial event that triggers a subsequent chain of events.
What part of speech is opening gun?
Opening gun is a noun.
What is the plural of opening gun?
The plural of opening gun is opening guns.

Words near opening gun in the dictionary

  1. opening doors
  2. opening fire
  3. opening goal
  4. opening goals
  5. Opening Government
  6. opening gun
  7. opening guns
  8. opening hours
  9. opening its doors
  10. opening move
  11. opening moves

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: opening 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.

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