"both barrels" meaning in English

See both barrels in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Etymology: In reference to discharging both barrels of a double-barrelled shotgun simultaneously rather than one at a time. Head templates: {{en-noun|p}} both barrels pl (plural only)
  1. (informal, figuratively) The maximum damage that a weapon can deliver. Tags: figuratively, informal, plural, plural-only
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  "etymology_text": "In reference to discharging both barrels of a double-barrelled shotgun simultaneously rather than one at a time.",
  "head_templates": [
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  "lang_code": "en",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              16,
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            ]
          ],
          "tags": [
            "collocation"
          ],
          "text": "to give someone both barrels",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              20,
              32
            ]
          ],
          "tags": [
            "collocation"
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          "text": "to let someone have both barrels",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
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            [
              20,
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          ],
          "tags": [
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          "text": "to hit someone with both barrels",
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        },
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          "bold_text_offsets": [
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              40,
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          ],
          "ref": "2025 August 7, Zach Vasquez, “From puppy murder to racist podcasts: South Park’s anti-deportation episode is utterly ruthless TV”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:",
          "text": "Rightwing media mouthpieces and ICE get both barrels in South Park’s latest zeitgeist-capturing satire.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The maximum damage that a weapon can deliver."
      ],
      "id": "en-both_barrels-en-noun-6il5MGH4",
      "links": [
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, figuratively) The maximum damage that a weapon can deliver."
      ],
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        "informal",
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  "word": "both barrels"
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  "etymology_text": "In reference to discharging both barrels of a double-barrelled shotgun simultaneously rather than one at a time.",
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      "expansion": "both barrels pl (plural only)",
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  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
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          "text": "to hit someone with both barrels",
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          "ref": "2025 August 7, Zach Vasquez, “From puppy murder to racist podcasts: South Park’s anti-deportation episode is utterly ruthless TV”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:",
          "text": "Rightwing media mouthpieces and ICE get both barrels in South Park’s latest zeitgeist-capturing satire.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The maximum damage that a weapon can deliver."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
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        [
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        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, figuratively) The maximum damage that a weapon can deliver."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively",
        "informal",
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "both barrels"
}

Download raw JSONL data for both barrels meaning in English (1.6kB)

{
  "called_from": "form_description/20250107",
  "msg": "Form tags without form: desc='plural plural-only', tagsets=[('plural', 'plural-only')]",
  "path": [
    "both barrels"
  ],
  "section": "English",
  "subsection": "noun",
  "title": "both barrels",
  "trace": ""
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-03-25 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-03-03 using wiktextract (05c257f and 9d9a410). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.