stinger

plural stingers

1. A pointed portion of an insect or arachnid used for attack.

   Synonyms: sting

2. Anything that is used to sting, as a means of attack.

   The thing stopped then and looked at me a moment as much as to say: "Why this thing has a stinger! I must be careful." And then it reached out its long neck and opened its mighty jaws and grabbed for me; but I wasn't there.

   1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter IV, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC

3. Anything, such as an insult, that stings mentally or psychologically.
4. A cocktail of brandy and crème de menthe.
5. A portable bed of nails to puncture car tires, used by police and military forces.

   Synonyms: spike strip

6. A minor neurological injury of the spine characterized by a shooting or stinging pain down one arm, followed by numbness and weakness.
7. A station identifier on television or radio played between shows.
8. A scene shown on films or television shows after the credits.
9. slangA nonlethal grenade using rubber instead of shrapnel, more commonly called a sting grenade.
10. A short musical phrase or chord used non-diegetically to dramatic or emphatic effect.

    1 more example

    The most commonly used tool in the horror score kit is the “sting” — a quick and loud jolt of sound that coincides with a frightening image or the attack of a killer or creature. “Stingers are a form of music that are unique to movies,” Young adds. “There’s no other venue of musicmaking that has a window of opportunity for writing these little splats of instrumental sound that exist for the sole purpose of getting the little girls in the audience to jump out of their seats. In two or three seconds, you have to do enough so that it isn’t melodrama, that it does the job and also it’s your signature.”

    2007 November 15, Jeff Bond, “Composing scary sounds not for the faint of heart”, in The Hollywood Reporter

11. slangA final note played at the end of a military march.
12. slangbroadcastingAn extension cord.
13. West CountryslangBristolA stinging nettle.
14. Chironex fleckeri, an extremely venomous Australian box jellyfish.
15. slangAn improvised heating element used to boil or heat water in prison.

plural Stingers

1. governmentThe FIM-92 portable infra-red homing surface-to-air missile.