Definition of "sawed-off" [sawed-off]

• Having one end sawed off: a sawed-off shotgun. (adjective)
• Slang Short; runty. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Like the monster in the horror movies, you can lock all the doors, barricade all the windows, grab a sawed-off shotgun and hide in the basement."
• "Not the saccharine Disney versions, but the unexpurgated Grimms, with their sawed-off heels and lopped-off heads and altogether dark and nasty vision."
• "In the case of federal laws, since a 1939 case involving sawed-off shotguns, United States v. Miller, the courts have held that the Second Amendment only confers a collective right to keep and bear arms, which must have a "reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.""