rifle Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a shoulder firearm with a long barrel and a rifled bore
    • he lifted the rifle to his shoulder and fired
  2. verb steal goods; take as spoils
    pillage; strip; despoil; plunder; foray; loot; reave; ransack.
    • During the earthquake people looted the stores that were deserted by their owners
  3. verb go through in search of something; search through someone's belongings in an unauthorized way
    go.
    • Who rifled through my desk drawers?

WordNet

Ri"fle transitive verb
Etymology
F. rifler to rifle, sweep away; of uncertain origin. CF. Raff.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Rifled ; present participle & verbal noun Rifling
Definitions
  1. To seize and bear away by force; to snatch away; to carry off.
    Till time shall rifle every youthful grace. Pope.
  2. 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.
  3. To raffle. Obs. J. Webster.
Ri"fle intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. To raffle. Obs. Chapman.
  2. To commit robbery. R. Bp. Hall.
Ri"fle noun
Etymology
Akin to Dan. rifle, or riffel, the rifle of a gun, a chamfer (cf. riffel, riffelbösse, a rifle gun, rifle to rifle a gun, G. riefeln, riefen, to chamfer, groove), and E. rive. See Rive, and cf. Riffle, Rivel.
Definitions
  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 As a military firearm it has superseded the musket.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.
Ri"fle transitive verb
Definitions
  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.

Webster 1913