Definition of "submachine gun" []

• A lightweight automatic gun that shoots pistol ammunition, is usually fired from the shoulder or hip, and often has the capacity for shooting single rounds. (noun)

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.

• "There was a spare Glock 9-millimeter and a Mauser SP66 sniper's rifle, along with a South African–made BXP submachine gun fitted with a suppressor and a grenade launcher, which seemed to me like a contradiction in terms."
• "In an uncharacteristically brief statement, the al-Qaeda leader, dressed in a camouflage jacket with a submachine gun propped at his side, said that the attacks were revenge for the long-standing Western humiliation of the Muslim world, consistently his most important theme."
• "Boghut had a Russian submachine gun with a seventy-two-round magazine."