parting shot
parting shot noun: an insult or barbed comment issued as the speaker departs or the conversation comes to an end.
Noun
parting shot (plural parting shots)
- An insult or barbed comment issued as the speaker departs or the conversation comes to an end.
- Gold Coast Deputy Mayor David Power took a parting shot at the Crime and Misconduct Commission and his council enemies as he announced his bombshell resignation today.2007 September 18, Greg Stolz, “Power's parting shot at enemies”, in Courier-Mail, Australia
- 22 March 2012, Scott Tobias, AV Club Cabin Boyhttp://www.avclub.com/articles/cabin-boy,71269/
When news arrives that the school must graduate Nathanial to official “Fancy Lad” status early and put him on the Queen Catherine first class to run the Mayweather in Hawaii, the headmaster dutifully...
Forms of parting shot
| plural | parting shots |
|---|
Origin of parting shot
Believed to be a variation of Parthian shot, referring to a military maneuver in which Parthian troops retreating on horseback turned back to face the enemy and shot while retreating.
Questions about parting shot
- What does parting shot mean?
- Parting shot means an insult or barbed comment issued as the speaker departs or the conversation comes to an end.
- What part of speech is parting shot?
- Parting shot is a noun.
- What is the plural of parting shot?
- The plural of parting shot is parting shots.
Words near parting shot in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: parting shot (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-parting shot.ogg.
Cite this entry: “parting shot.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/parting_shot. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.