school shooting

noun

A mass shooting which occurs in a school or university, targeting their students and staff; typically in an indiscriminate manner.

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Meanings

nounschool shooting (plural school shootings)

plural school shootings

  1. UScrimeA mass shooting which occurs in a school or university, targeting their students and staff; typically in an indiscriminate manner.
    1 more example

    The video that Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, both seniors, produced in their video production class has been turned over to authorities, said Veik, a day after Harris and Klebold - members of the Trench Coat Mafia - committed the most heinous school shooting in U.S. history and then apparently killed themselves.

    1999 April 22, Erin Emery, Steve Lipsher, Ricky Young, “Video, poems foreshadowed day of disaster”, in The Denver Post, archived from the original on 18 Mar 2016

Origin

From school + shooting. First use appears c. 1903 in the Savannah Morning News.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

school shooting. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/school%20shooting

MLA

“school shooting.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/school%20shooting. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “school shooting,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/school%20shooting.

Source: school shooting on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.