Word Direct Answers

What does "rifle" mean?

Rifle: To strip; to rob; to pillage. Piers Plowman. Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about ye: If not, we'll make you sit and rifle you. Shak.

Additional senses

  1. 2.To raffle. [Obs.] J. Webster.
  2. 3.To raffle. [Obs.] Chapman.
  3. 4.To commit robbery. [R.] Bp. Hall.
  4. 5.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 As a military firearm it has superseded the musket.
  5. 6.pl. (Mil.) A body of soldiers armed with rifles.
  6. 7.A strip of wood covered with emery or a similar material, used for sharpening scythes. Rifle pit (Mil.), a trench for sheltering sharpshooters.
  7. 8.To grove; to channel; especially, to groove internally with spiral channels; as, to rifle a gun barrel or a cannon.
  8. 9.To whet with a rifle. See Rifle, n., 3.

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