bullets

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of bullet.

   Investigators recovered several bullets from the crime scene.

   The factory turns out thousands of bullets each day.

   Note

   The plural serves every sense of the noun, not only the gun. Bullets can also be the marks that open items in a list, large scheduled loan repayments, or rejection letters. Around firearms, careful writers keep bullets for the projectiles alone. Calling whole unfired rounds bullets, with casing and charge included, is informal. The same spelling also names a poker hand of two aces and the present-tense verb.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of bullet.

   The motorcycle bullets down the empty highway at dawn.

   She bullets across the finish line well ahead of everyone else.

   Note

   One spelling covers several informal verbs, told apart by what follows. With no object it means speeding: the train bullets past. With text as its object it means marking items with bullet points: she bullets each recommendation. When the object is a person, it is slang, usually for dismissal from a job, and more rarely for shooting someone.

3. 3
   nounslang

   A pair of aces dealt as a player's starting hand in Texas hold 'em.

   He raised hard before the flop the moment he saw bullets in the hole.

   Holding bullets, she still lost the pot when a third king hit the river.

   Similaraces, rockets

   Note

   Table talk rather than rulebook language: poker players say bullets, or pocket rockets, where plainer writing would say a pair of aces. The word keeps its plural shape because it names two cards, so it takes no article. You hold bullets, never a bullets. As slang, it suits conversation and commentary among players better than formal writing about the game.

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