spike someone's guns

verb

To frustrate a person's efforts or designs; to undercut, to render helpless.

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Meanings

verbspike someone's guns (third-person singular simple present spikes someone's guns, present participle spiking someone's guns, simple past and past participle spiked someone's guns)

present singular third person spikes someone's guns · participle present spiking someone's guns · participle past spiked someone's guns · past spiked someone's guns

  1. To frustrate a person's efforts or designs; to undercut, to render helpless.

    Labour is known to be worried about the Cameron effect and might attempt to spike his guns.

    2005 November 8, John Crace, The Guardian
    1 more example

    But whatever the Russians may have felt (and, apparently, still do feel) about Shakespear, his superiors were delighted by the way he had so skilfully spiked the Tsar's guns by liberating his subjects.

    1990, Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game, Folio Society, published 2010, page 205

Origin

From the wartime practice of welding a metal spike into the touch hole of a cannon (generally done to enemy guns by raiders, or to one's own guns if forced to abandon them in a retreat), making the cannon impossible to fire.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

spike someone's guns. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/spike%20someone's%20guns

MLA

“spike someone's guns.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/spike%20someone's%20guns. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “spike someone's guns,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/spike%20someone's%20guns.

Source: spike someone's guns on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.