Word.ws English Dictionary

shotgun surgery

shotgun surgery noun: the antipattern of adding similar or identical source code in multiple parts of a software project, rather than implementing the desired functionality in a single place to make it reusable.

Noun

shotgun surgery (uncountable)

  1. (slang) The antipattern of adding similar or identical source code in multiple parts of a software project, rather than implementing the desired functionality in a single place to make it reusable.

Questions about shotgun surgery

What does shotgun surgery mean?
Shotgun surgery means the antipattern of adding similar or identical source code in multiple parts of a software project, rather than implementing the desired functionality in a single place to make it reusable.
What part of speech is shotgun surgery?
Shotgun surgery is a noun.

Words near shotgun surgery in the dictionary

  1. shotgun sequencing
  2. shotgun shack
  3. shotgun shacks
  4. shotgun start
  5. shotgun starts
  6. shotgun surgery
  7. shotgun wedding
  8. shotgun weddings
  9. shotgunlike
  10. shotgunned
  11. shotgunner

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shotgun surgery (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: “shotgun surgery.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shotgun_surgery. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.