weapon

Syllables: weap·on/ˈwɛp.ən/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/ˈwep.ən/

weapon noun: an instrument of attack or defense in combat or hunting, e.g. most guns, missiles, or swords.

Image: Rama, CC BY-SA 2.0 fr, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

weapon (plural weapons)

An instrument of attack or defense in combat or hunting, e.g. most guns, missiles, or swords.
- The club that is now mostly used for golf was once a common weapon.
- Whether modern, industrial man is less or more warlike than his hunter-gatherer ancestors is impossible to determine.[…]One thing that is true, though, is that murder rates have fallen over the centuries, as policing has spread and the routine carrying of weapons has diminished. Modern society may...2013 July 20, “Old soldiers?”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845
Synonyms:

arm
An instrument or other means of harming or exerting control over another.
- Money is the main weapon of modern oligarchs.
- “[…] it is not fair of you to bring against mankind double weapons ! Dangerous enough you are as woman alone, without bringing to your aid those gifts of mind suited to problems which men have been accustomed to arrogate to themselves.”1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
(humorous, informal) A tool of any kind.
- Choose your weapon.
(Ireland, UK, derogatory, slang) An idiot, an oaf, a fool, a tool; a contemptible or incompetent person.

Synonyms:

moron, arse
(Australia, slang) A very skilled, competent, or capable person or thing worthy of awe.
- It has a whopping 5.4-litre V8, with a supercharger bolted to the top of it to help low-end pulling power. In short, it's a weapon and will happily dust a Porsche as easy as brushing your teeth.2006 May 12, Joshua Dowling, “Brains or brawn”, in The Sydney Morning Herald
- We played Endless Heights' record release show earlier this year and during their set Christian from Endless Heights' lung collapsed, but he finished the set like an absolute weapon.2016 November 21, Marcus Tamp, “Hardcore 2016 Focus: Vices”, in The Music
Synonyms:

legend, champion, unit
(rare, slang) The human genitals.
- Young motherfucking legend, niggas just pretending
  I spit my shit, infectious, don't come in my section
  Or get wet bitch with that weapon
  Lift the pussy, yeah I bench press it, and I been stressing since a adolescent2013 December 3, Beamon, “Lord Love Me” (track 2), in The BeamGod: Lost Files
- Weh you get da pussy deh from?
  Hey, gyal me love you
  Md love the way you use your weapon
  Gyal, your pussy tight like a vice grip2017 April 13, Mavado, “Ride All Night (My Kinda Girl)” (in Jamaican Creole)
Synonyms:

danger zone, down there, genital organs, genitalia, genitals, genitors, intimate parts, junk, nethers, no-no spot

Verb

weapon (third-person singular simple present weapons, present participle weaponing, simple past and past participle weaponed)

(transitive) To equip with a weapon; to arm.
- […] the friends of the country and of the equal rights of all men, the friends of enfranchising the black man and of weaponing his hand for defense; the friends of taking the governments of these rebel States out of the hands of their rebel possessors, […]1868, Henry Wilson, History of the Reconstruction Measures of the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congresses, 1865-68, page 425

weapon meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

weapon in Hindi

instrument of attack or defense in combat: हथियार hathiyār, शस्त्र śastra, आयुध āyudh

weapon in Tamil

instrument of attack or defense in combat: ஆயுதம் āyutam

weapon in Marathi

instrument of attack or defense in combat: शस्त्र śastra, हत्यार hatyār

weapon in Urdu

instrument of attack or defense in combat: ہَتِھیار hathiyār, اَسْلِحَہ asliha, اَسْلَحَہ aslaha

More languagesFewer languages

weapon in Bengali: অস্ত্র ostro, হাতিয়ার hatiẏar
weapon in Telugu: ఆయుధము āyudhamu
weapon in Malayalam: ആയുധം āyudhaṁ
weapon in Kannada: ಆಯುಧ āyudha
weapon in Punjabi: ਹਥਿਆਰ hathiāra
weapon in Gujarati: શસ્ત્ર śastra, હથિયાર hathiyār
weapon in Odia: ଶସ୍ତ୍ର śastra
weapon in Sanskrit: आयुध āyudha
weapon in Sinhala: ගිනි අවියක් gini awiyak, අවියක් awiyak
weapon in Nepali: हतियार hatiyār
weapon in Pashto: وسله wasla, اسلحه asleha
weapon in Tagalog: sandata
weapon in Arabic: سِلَاح silāḥ, أَسْلِحَة ʔasliḥa
weapon in Malay: senjata
weapon in Indonesian: senjata
weapon in Thai: อาวุธ aa-wút
weapon in Vietnamese: vũ khí, binh khí
weapon in Myanmar: လက်နက် laknak

Examples of weapon in a sentence

Rory Delap's long throw-ins are a familiar weapon to the Potters' opponents but this does not make them any easier to defend against.2011 January 15, Phil Dawkes, “Stoke 2-0 Bolton”, in BBC:
He was one of the people to chair the weapon up the beach, calling out to her: "What did I tell you!"2021 April 20, Will Swanton, “From one goofy-footer to another: American Caroline Marks 'stoked' to win Narrabeen Classic”, in The...

All 40 example sentences with weapon

Synonyms of weapon

17 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of weapon

Forms of weapon

Noun
plural	weapons
Verb
third-person singular present	weapons
present participle	weaponing
past participle	weaponed
past	weaponed

Plural of weapon: weapons

Origin of weapon

From Middle English wepen, from Old English wǣpn, from Proto-West Germanic *wāpn, from Proto-Germanic *wēpną (“weapon”), of unknown origin, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *wēbnom. Cognates Cognate with Scots weepon (“weapon”), North Frisian woopen (“weapon”), Saterland Frisian Woapen (“weapon”), West Frisian wapen (“weapon; coat of arms”), Alemannic German Waaffe (“tool”), Dutch wapen (“weapon”), German Waffe (“weapon”) and Wappen (“coat of arms”), Luxembourgish Waff (“weapon”), Yiddish וואָפֿן (vofn, “weapon”), Danish våben (“weapon; coat of arms”), Faroese vákn, vápn (“weapon; whaling lance”), Icelandic vopn (“weapon”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk våpen (“weapon”), Swedish vapen (“weapon; coat of arms”), Gothic 𐍅𐌴𐍀𐌽 (wēpn, “weapon”).

Words formed from weapon

Words that rhyme with weapon

Questions about weapon

What does weapon mean?: Weapon means an instrument of attack or defense in combat or hunting, e.g. most guns, missiles, or swords.
What is weapon in Hindi?: Weapon in Hindi is हथियार (hathiyār), शस्त्र (śastra), आयुध (āyudh). See Weapon meaning in Hindi.
How do you use weapon in a sentence?: Rory Delap's long throw-ins are a familiar weapon to the Potters' opponents but this does not make them any easier to defend against.
What part of speech is weapon?: Weapon can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce weapon?: Weapon is pronounced /ˈwɛp.ən/ (UK).
What is the plural of weapon?: The plural of weapon is weapons.

Words near weapon in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: weapon (page history and authors); අවියක් (Sinhala) (page history and authors); हतियार (Nepali) (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-weapon.wav, en-us-weapon.ogg.

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