rifle

Forms

1.A firearm fired from the shoulder; improved range and accuracy is provided by a long, rifled barrel.
- In the June days of 1848 Baudelaire reports seeing revolutionaries (he might have been one of them) going through the streets of Paris with rifles, shooting all the clocks.
- Still, a dozen men with rifles, and cartridges to match, stayed behind when they filed through a white aldea lying silent amid the cane, and the Sin Verguenza swung into slightly quicker stride.
2.An artillery piece with a rifled barrel.
3.A strip of wood covered with emery or a similar material, used for sharpening scythes.

1.To quickly search through many items (such as papers, the contents of a drawer, a pile of clothing).
- She made a mess when she rifled through the stack of papers, looking for the title document.
2.To commit robbery or theft.
- Thither repair at accustomed times their harlots […] not with empty hands, for they be as skilful in picking, rifling, and filching as the upright men.
3.To search with intent to steal.
4.To strip of goods; to rob; to pillage.
- Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about ye: / If not, we'll make you sit and rifle you.

Uncommon· #3590

Originally short for “rifled gun”, referring to the spiral grooves inside the barrel.