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Rifle   /rˈaɪfəl/   Listen
noun
Rifle  n.  
1.
A gun, the inside of whose barrel is grooved with spiral channels, thus giving the ball a rotary motion and insuring greater accuracy of fire. As a military firearm it has superseded the musket.
2.
pl. (Mil.) A body of soldiers armed with rifles.
3.
A strip of wood covered with emery or a similar material, used for sharpening scythes.
Rifle pit (Mil.), a trench for sheltering sharpshooters.


verb
Rifle  v. t.  (past & past part. rifled; pres. part. rifling)  
1.
To seize and bear away by force; to snatch away; to carry off. "Till time shall rifle every youthful grace."
2.
To strip; to rob; to pillage. "Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about ye: If not, we'll make you sit and rifle you."
3.
To raffle. (Obs.)


Rifle  v. t.  
1.
To grove; to channel; especially, to groove internally with spiral channels; as, to rifle a gun barrel or a cannon.
2.
To whet with a rifle. See Rifle, n., 3.


Rifle  v. i.  
1.
To raffle. (Obs.)
2.
To commit robbery. (R.)





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Rifle" Quotes from Famous Books



... follow his course, not exactly—that I will explain afterwards—and agree with him in everything, generally speaking. Praise his exactitude and fidelity, and occasionally quote him; this is but fair: after you rob a man (and I intend you shall rifle him most completely), it is but decent to give him kind words. All others you must abuse, contradict, and depreciate. Now, there is a great advantage in so doing: in the first place, you make the ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... side of the fire; and in one corner, near the two beds in the room, hand-made quilts of many colours were piled several feet high. On wooden pegs above the door where ten years before would have been buck antlers and an old-fashioned rifle, lay a Winchester; on either side of the door were auger holes through the logs (he did not understand that they were port-holes) and another Winchester stood in the corner. From the mantel the butt of ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... rag and bobtail patrol of grooms and pushed off just before daybreak. Our people had the edge of the village manned with every rifle they could collect. A subaltern lying ear to earth hailed me as I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... eider-duck homeward I came Thou didst lie 'neath a rock, with thy rifle didst aim; In my breast thou didst strike me; the blood thou dost see Is the mark that I bear, oh! beloved ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... resistance would be offered to the ascent, but only to our return; and was further cautioned against the mistake, then common, of underrating the courage of the Rebels. "It proved impossible to dislodge those fellows from the banks," my informant said; "they had dug rifle-pits, and swarmed like hornets, and when fairly silenced in one direction, they were sure to open upon us from another." All this sounded alarming, but it was nine months before that the event had happened; and although nothing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various


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