Complete classic literature • Five-line readings • Clear US narration
VELMORA ACADEMY
Academy of Archival Languages & Memory Studies
Menu Close

rifle

verb · noun US /ˈraɪfəl/

steal goods; take as spoils

How often you will meet it

Rank 2,774 of 71,295 words measured. It occurs 5,987 times across 155,370 chapters — 0.003% of every word in the library.

What it means

verb

  1. steal goods; take as spoils also: plunder, despoil, loot, reave, strip, ransack During the earthquake people looted the stores that were deserted by their owners
  2. go through in search of something; search through someone's belongings in an unauthorized way also: go Who rifled through my desk drawers?

noun

  1. a shoulder firearm with a long barrel and a rifled bore he lifted the rifle to his shoulder and fired

CMU Pronouncing Dictionary · Princeton WordNet 3.1

rifle in real books

Each sentence below was written by a published author and is taken from a different book in our library. Open one to read the passage it came from, with narration.

  • Behind his elbow was swung a Maynard rifle.

    The Cavalier · George Washington Cable · Chapter 1

  • As he pushed ahead of the geologist the boy flashed his old rifle to his shoulder.

    The Heart of the Hills · John, Jr. Fox · Chapter 1

  • The heavy butt of a Winchester rifle descended on my head and I fell to the ground.

    The Red Record Tabulated Statistics · Ida B. Wells-Barnett · Chapter 1

  • He carried neither rifle nor gun in his hand, and his narrow leathern belt was empty of either knife or revolver.

    A Phyllis of the Sierras · Bret Harte · Chapter 1

  • I prefer the rifle: it makes a clean job of death, and does not prematurely stuff the bird with globules of lead.

    In the Wilderness · Charles Dudley Warner · Chapter 1

Nearby in the frequency table

The whole table Read a book