shot across the bows
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.48 in modern English
30
Scrabble Score
17
Letters
1
Syllables
10
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Example Sentences
- "President [Franklin] Pierce, like a great war ship, fired two shots across the bows of the Congress, to bring matters to."
- "Scientists considered collectively are remarkably single-minded in their views about what is important and what is not. If a graduate student gives a seminar and no one comes or no one asks a question, it is very sad, but not so sad as the question gallantly put by a senior or a colleague that betrays that he hasn't listened to a word. But it is a warning sign, a shot across the bows."
- "Though I have fired a few shots across the bows of some of my critics, notably the late Professor Lon Fuller and Professor R[onald] M[yles] Dworkin, I have hitherto made no general comprehensive reply to any of them; I have preferred to watch and learn from a most instructive running debate in which some of the critics have differed from others as much as they have differed from me."
- "Perhaps her refusal to marry him would be the shot across the bows Jack needed to help him face his demons. But somehow she doubted it."