one-shot, a. and n.
[one numeral a. 34 a.]
A. adj. Achieved or done with a single shot, stroke, attempt, etc.; consisting of a single shot or try; occurring, performed, produced, used, etc., only once; single, isolated.
| 1907 Westm. Gaz. 28 Mar. 9/1 The one-shot hole..gives good play its just reward... A hole which can just, and only just, be reached from the tee by a fine driver is, therefore, an excellent hole. 1927 Sunday Pictorial 28 Aug. 8/4 This includes such up-to-date owner-driver features as..one-shot oiling for all other chassis points. 1948 Sun (Baltimore) 31 May 8/2 For this he asked a force in being fully equipped and trained. He called this ‘a stop-gap, one-shot army, a plug in the dike until we rallied sufficient and effective reserves’. 1950 N.Y. Times 28 Dec. 3/6 A ‘one-shot’ insecticide system that operates when the pilot pushes a button. 1953 Pohl & Kornbluth Space Merchants (1955) ii. 16 Fowler Schocken was too big for one-shot accounts. What we wanted was the year-after-year reliability of a major industrial complex. 1954 K. W. Gatland Devel. Guided Missile (ed. 2) 29 The latter method is of chief interest for ‘one-shot’ rockets as the target plate burns away during running unless low specific impulse propellants are used. 1959 E. Fenwick Long Way Down xx. 155 It was hard to get anybody for a one-shot cleaning job. 1962 A. Nisbett Technique Sound Studio ii. 43 A ‘one-shot’ technique was used, i.e. the whole programme was taken as a continuous sequence. Ibid. xiii. 232 It is essential that the basic ‘message’ of a piece should be understood in a single hearing—for sound is basically a ‘one-shot’ medium. 1966 Listener 18 Aug. 234/1 Not enough one-shot original plays are presented on television. 1968 M. Woodhouse Rock Baby xvii. 163 If it had been a one-shot thing, we might have been able to do it that way... But we couldn't afford any sort of mistake. 1972 D. E. Westlake Cops & Robbers (1973) xvi. 251 We were pitting our one-shot plan against a normal company's normal routine. 1978 Guardian Weekly 7 May 15/4 Copper produces 90 per cent of Zambia's foreign exchange, and the percentage is also high for the other producing countries that have what some economists call ‘one-shot economies’. |
B. n. An event, transaction, process, etc., that occurs only once; something that is used or intended for use only once; esp. a single appearance by a performer, production of a play, etc.; a story or article that has no sequel. Also one-shotter. orig. U.S.
| 1937 Printers' Ink Monthly May 40/1 One shot, a single program which is not one of a series. 1942 H. Haycraft Murder for Pleasure xi. 267 Some..magazine editors have been experimenting with novelette-length condensations (‘one-shots’ as they are called in the trade). 1943 Sat. Even. Post 20 Nov. 28/3 A one shot..is usually a charity event sponsored by a political or social organization with no professional knowledge of selling tickets. 1947 Jrnl. Brit. Interplanetary Soc. VI. 113 The application for which a motor is designed also has a profound effect on its design. The major variables are, magnitude and duration of thrust; fixed or variable thrust; whether for repeated use or a ‘one-shot’, and in the former case its total operating life. 1967 A. Arent Gravedigger's Funeral (1968) iv. 44 What was it going to be? A brush-off? A friendly hint that this was just a one-shotter? 1967 Wodehouse Company for Henry ix. 172 He..has actually sold it [sc. the book] as what he calls a one-shotter to a magazine. 1972 M. J. Bosse Incident at Naha iii. 137 ‘But you'd give her my money?’ ‘Sure, because you're a one-shot. I'd never have any peace if the bread came from me.’ |