Meanings
- pluralplural onlyThe glamour of love, war, and adventure, as opposed to mundane reality.
A whaler's life isn't all guns and roses, however, so Melville and a shipmate jumped ship at the Marquesas Islands.
2012, Bob*Star Publishing, American Literature Review, page 482 more examples
But the story is not all guns and roses. Many of these foreign fighters die in the combat zone or end up moving on to fight in other foreign conflicts. Significant percentages simply cannot endure the training or become disillusioned once they come to realize that the harsh realities of waging a bloody jihad are far less glamorous than they seemed from afar.
2015, Daniel Byman, Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Global Jihadist Movement, page 105'You're all guns and roses, mate,' was one off-hand comment on one of my crime thrillers where romance blossoms between two people trying to stop terrorists blowing up Heathrow Airport. In my erotic romances, I take time to discover the lives of the people involved before the action starts.
2021, SM Flint, Devotion and Duty
Cite this entry
guns and roses. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/guns%20and%20roses
“guns and roses.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/guns%20and%20roses. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “guns and roses,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/guns%20and%20roses.
Source: guns and roses on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.