Home › Glossary › Letter B

Big guns

Idiomatic Phrase
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Powerful people, resources, or arguments brought in for major impact.

Detailed Definition
Big guns denote heavy hitters, used metaphorically in poetry for influential forces in conflict or achievement.
Example
Example in poetry:
“The big guns of history thundered, yet the small lyric endured,” contrasts power and voice; In a political poem, big guns may mean artillery rather than influential people; “They brought in the big guns: grandmother, lawyer, union steward,” uses the idiom humorously; A poet can challenge the phrase by asking whose “big guns” get heard in the canon
Additional Notes
"Big guns" notes denote heavy artillery metaphorically for impactful elements in rhetoric or debate poems. Tip: Deploy for escalation. Related: "call the tune." Helps professors teach amplification and persuasive strategies.
Also Known As
heavyweights big players major figures top brass important people main forces
Skip to main content