Scattergun

adj, noun, slang

adj, noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1
Synonym of shotgun. informal
"But in all-around use, the scattergun now ranks first across fields and forests, trap and skeet ranges."
2
firearm that is a double-barreled smoothbore shoulder weapon for firing shot at short ranges wordnet

Adjective

1
Unfocused in approach or topic.
"UKIP's Facebook approach was the most 'scattergun', posting a slew of national messages, presumably in the hope that something might impact locally."

Synonyms

shotgun all over the place dot scattershot shotgun

Example

"But in all-around use, the scattergun now ranks first across fields and forests, trap and skeet ranges."

Etymology

From scatter + gun.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.