Elephant Gun Definition & Meaning

American

British

Examples

elephant gun American

noun

1. a gun of very large caliber, as .410 or greater, used in killing elephants or other big game.

elephant gun British

noun

1. a gun used in the hunting of elephants

2. slang a surfboard for riding large waves

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

It’s more, would it be wrong to use this elephant gun in this situation?

From New York Times

Because the point of the sci-fi isn’t, “Wow. We’ve really gamed out that somebody will one day be able to make an elephant gun.”

From New York Times

But Mr. Buffett’s stock repurchases suggest that the huge amounts of cash that Berkshire generates every year from its insurance holdings — which he has called his “elephant gun” — are unlikely to be spent on the kind of major corporate acquisitions that have been among his signature business achievements.

From New York Times

For the most part, I see no point in training an elephant gun on small targets.

From New York Times

"This had zero re-retweets, nobody would have heard of this thing, except for the letter he sent to the professor and the professor's boss. ... Copying the guy's boss does look like an attempt to get him in trouble, or worse, at work. ... Given his prominence, it looks like using an elephant gun to attack a flea and that's why this has blown up."

From Fox News

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.