How to Use smoking gun in a Sentence

smoking gun

noun
  • This document is the smoking gun that proves that he was lying.
  • There is not a smoking gun; there is not just one causal factor.
    — Gary Stix, Scientific American, 30 Jan. 2025
  • Are the bricks in the photo the smoking guns they’ve been made out to be?
    — Elizabeth Logan, Glamour, 13 Mar. 2024
  • Buyers do not need a smoking gun to ask for a discount on a deal.
    — David Chapman, Forbes.com, 22 May 2026
  • The logic is compelling, sure, and the smoking gun could be out there.
    — Jason P. Dinh, Discover Magazine, 19 July 2022
  • To be sure, no covert agency worth its salt is likely to leave behind a smoking gun.
    — Aqil Shah, Foreign Affairs, 2 May 2015
  • Not a scandal, not even a smoking gun — but an admission.
    — Dara-Abasi Ita, Forbes.com, 14 June 2026
  • Of course, there’s no one smoking gun that’s true for all situations.
    — Molly Longman, refinery29.com, 29 Oct. 2021
  • The smoking gun is an isotope of iron called iron-60, which has been found in large amounts on the seafloor.
    — Michael Irving, New Atlas, 2 Mar. 2025
  • Anagnopoulos said that the podcast doesn’t produce a smoking gun.
    — Richard Ruelas, The Arizona Republic, 11 Feb. 2023
  • Her messy blond bun and uniform of black turtlenecks have not been held up as a smoking gun in her subterfuge.
    — Washington Post, 8 Dec. 2021
  • Scientists say there is no smoking gun linking climate change to those trends.
    — Scott Dance and Kate Selig, Anchorage Daily News, 10 Aug. 2023
  • Neither Harry nor his lawyers have yet produced a smoking gun.
    — William Booth, Washington Post, 7 June 2023
  • The father-daughter pair’s find, which was just six miles away from de la Salle’s, was the smoking gun.
    — Christian Thorsberg, Smithsonian Magazine, 19 Apr. 2024
  • Turned out, things were about to get a lot worse for Gray, because his wrecked, smoking van was a smoking gun.
    — Natalie Morales, CBS News, 3 Feb. 2024
  • There’s no evidence here that there’s some kind of a smoking gun, that somebody did something wrong.
    — Helen Branswell, STAT, 18 Apr. 2024
  • That was a smoking gun for Gumowska, who now had ammo enough to pursue her case.
    — Mark Ellwood, Robb Report, 6 Apr. 2022
  • In this case, there remains no smoking gun to prove either side of the authorship question.
    — Stephen Cox, The Hollywood Reporter, 6 Mar. 2024
  • Bryant had the smoking gun that B-Mickie used to kill Kato.
    — Giana Levy, Variety, 16 Aug. 2025
  • First, the newly sparking and smoking gun fired bolts that ascended into the sky.
    — Paul Tassi, Forbes, 10 Nov. 2022
  • This kit includes a smoking gun, wood chips, a smoke infuser, a dome lid, and a charging cable.
    — Jessica Comstock, Better Homes & Gardens, 13 Jan. 2024
  • Across these variants, one detail is usually cited as the smoking gun.
    — Lane Brown, Vulture, 17 Dec. 2025
  • Forcible vendor lock-in through tactics like these would be a smoking gun for the DOJ.
    — Patrick Moorhead, Forbes, 12 Sep. 2024
  • Torre described Wong’s investment as the smoking gun.
    — Sam Settleman, New York Times, 13 Sep. 2025
  • Help dad up his game in the kitchen with a smoking gun, which can add intense flavors to meat and cheese or even cold smoke on cocktails and ice cream.
    — Popular Mechanics Editors, Popular Mechanics, 5 June 2019
  • The most popular cocktail smoking guns come with a dome to fit over the beverage being smoked.
    — Bestreviews, Mercury News, 16 Oct. 2025
  • Get yourself a cheap smoking gun and pipe smoke into a container that has the cinnamon syrup, then close the lid.
    — Jason O'Bryan, Robb Report, 18 Jan. 2025
  • The biggest difference is the lack of a smoking gun in the Sarver story.
    — Katie Wiseman, The Indianapolis Star, 7 Mar. 2024
  • Genetic mutations are a smoking gun — as long as scientists know which ones to look for.
    — Kaitlin Sullivan, NBC news, 28 Aug. 2025
  • The smoking gun is supposed to be the constant revelation of these rich people’s hypocrisy.
    — Ct Jones, Rolling Stone, 11 Aug. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'smoking gun.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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