small arm

noun

1. Usually small arms. a firearm designed to be held in one or both hands while being fired: in the United States the term is applied to weapons of a caliber of up to one inch (2.5 centimeters).

Other Words From

• small-armed adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of small arm¹

First recorded in 1680–90

Example Sentences

Above them, on both sides, loom tall, green mountains from where the militaries of the nuclear-armed neighbours have intermittently rained mortars, shells and small arm fire on each other through the decades.

From Reuters

Some of them walked while gripping tightly the arm of a child, their clenched fingers around the small arm, showing that they were using a local boy as a shield.

From New York Times

His was what law enforcement calls a ghost gun, or an “independently fabricated” small arm.

From New York Times

And an estimate by the firm Small Arm Analytics and Forecasting suggests that gun sales across the country rose 85.3 percent in March compared to the same month last year.

From Scientific American

The National Guard in Juarez, mostly made up of active-duty soldiers equipped with ballistic helmets, body armor and assault rifles, is identifiable by small arm bands emblazoned with the letters GN, for the Spanish words for National Guard.

From Reuters