Word.ws English Dictionary

outgunned

outgunned is the past participle of outgun.

Adjective

outgunned (comparative more outgunned, superlative most outgunned)

  1. (literal) Having insufficient guns compared to the enemy.
    • The fighters were hugely outgunned by the regular army.
    • The opposite is true, said Dulcie Flaherty, executive director of the Montgomery County Lands Trust: "We are very outgunned. We need to have funding […]2002 February 17, “Environmentalists warn cutbacks could devastate programs, Funds are needed from every government level, not just from municipalities and private donations, conservationists say”...
  2. (figuratively) Up against formidable adverse circumstances or (especially) adversarial forces.
    • Near-synonyms: outmatched, in too deep, out of one's depth, over one's head

Meaning of outgun

Verb

outgun (third-person singular simple present outguns, present participle outgunning, simple past and past participle outgunned)

  1. (transitive) To defeat in terms of firepower.
    • Two can play at destructive industrialism, and now we out-gun you. We are piling up munitions now faster than you.1917, H.G. Wells, War and the Future

Synonyms of outgunned

Forms of outgunned

comparativemore outgunned
superlativemost outgunned

Questions about outgunned

What does outgunned mean?
Outgunned means having insufficient guns compared to the enemy.
What is outgunned the past participle of?
Outgunned is the past participle of outgun.
What part of speech is outgunned?
Outgunned is an adjective.

Words near outgunned in the dictionary

  1. outguesses
  2. outguessing
  3. outguide
  4. outguides
  5. outgun
  6. outgunned
  7. outgunning
  8. outguns
  9. outgush
  10. outgushed
  11. outgushes

Source and license

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