Word.ws English Dictionary

starting guns

starting guns is the plural of starting gun.

Meaning of starting gun

Noun

starting gun (plural starting guns)

  1. A gun fired to start a race.
    • No one told you when to run / You missed the starting gun1973, Roger Waters, “Time”, in The Dark Side of the Moon, performed by Pink Floyd
  2. (figuratively) A signal to start or proceed; something that triggers an event or situation.
    • “In the fight for voting rights, this vote was the starting gun, not the finish line,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader. “We will not let it go. We will not let it die. This voter suppression cannot stand.”2021 June 22, Nicholas Fandos, “Republicans Block Voting Rights Bill, Dealing Blow to Biden and Democrats”, in The New York Times
    Synonyms:
    starting signal

Questions about starting guns

What is starting guns the plural of?
Starting guns is the plural of starting gun.

Words near starting guns in the dictionary

  1. starting gate
  2. starting gates
  3. starting grid
  4. starting grids
  5. starting gun
  6. starting guns
  7. starting handle
  8. starting handles
  9. starting hole
  10. starting holes
  11. starting in

Source and license

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