shot across the bows

plural shots across the bows

1. alternativeAlternative form of shot across the bow.

   President [Franklin] Pierce, like a great war ship, fired two shots across the bows of the Congress, to bring matters to.

   1856 March, “Monthly Summary. [United States.]”, in George R[ex] Graham, editor, Graham’s American Monthly Magazine of Literature and Art, volume XLVIII, number 3, Philadelphia, Pa.: George R. Graham, […], →OCLC, page 267, column 1

   3 more examples

   Scientists considered collectively are remarkably single-minded in their views about what is important and what is not. If a graduate student gives a seminar and no one comes or no one asks a question, it is very sad, but not so sad as the question gallantly put by a senior or a colleague that betrays that he hasn't listened to a word. But it is a warning sign, a shot across the bows.

   1979, P[eter] B[rian] Medawar, “What shall I Do Research on?”, in Advice to a Young Scientist (Alfred P. Sloan Foundation series), New York, N.Y.: Basic Books, →ISBN, pages 13–14

   Though I have fired a few shots across the bows of some of my critics, notably the late Professor Lon Fuller and Professor R[onald] M[yles] Dworkin, I have hitherto made no general comprehensive reply to any of them; I have preferred to watch and learn from a most instructive running debate in which some of the critics have differed from others as much as they have differed from me.

   1992, H[erbert] L[ionel] A[dolphus] Hart, “Postscript”, in The Concept of Law, 3rd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, published 2012, →ISBN, pages 238–239

   Perhaps her refusal to marry him would be the shot across the bows Jack needed to help him face his demons. But somehow she doubted it.

   2013, Lucinda Riley, chapter 28, in The Midnight Rose, London: Macmillan, →ISBN; republished London: Pan Books, 2014, →ISBN, page 379