double-barrel

English

Adjective

double-barrel (not comparable)

1. Alternative form of double-barrelled.
   • 1951 October, R. S. McNaught, “Lines of Approach”, in Railway Magazine, page 704:

     At last the first glimpse from a bridge of an open-top red bus, and a noticeable darkening of the atmosphere from the smoke of London: then the increasingly dingy stations with double-barrel names, set amid what has always been to me the outstanding feature of the "Premier Line" approach to London—the positively marvellous display of crazy chimney-pots on the grey inner suburban houses. As many as twenty, all of varying style, standing together like ranks of jagged teeth, and providing a Dickensian back-cloth which no other route can boast.

Noun

double-barrel (plural double-barrels)

1. (informal) A double-barrelled gun, now especially a double-barrelled shotgun.
   • 1819 (date written), John Keats, “The Cap and Bells; or, The Jealousies”, in [Horace Elisha Scudder], editor, The Complete Poetical Works and Letters of John Keats, Cambridge edition, Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], published 1899, →OCLC, page 229:

     Five minutes before one — brought down a moth / With my new double-barrel — stew'd the thighs, / And made a very tolerable broth […]

   • 2006, Noire [pseudonym], Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, pages 46–47:

     Killer started drinking that Friday night and the more he drank, the meaner he got. He sat on the couch smelling like liquor and piss. Mumbling and cursing with his double-barrel slung across his lap.

   • 2018, Tony Mangia, Fascination, Horseater Press, →ISBN, page 48:

     The three of us huddled for a long time, stoned and shivering, before Billy and Tommy finally both aimed their double-barrels at something other than the trees and soda cans they had been popping before.