straight shooter

See also: straight-shooter

English

Alternative forms

• straight-shooter

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

straight shooter (plural straight shooters)

1. (idiomatic) A person who is honest and forthright.

   Synonym: straight talker

   • 1996 February 12, Katharine Q. Seelye, “Politics: Bob Dole—In No-Frills Message, Modesty Vies With Pride in Service”, in New York Times, retrieved 4 September 2012:

     The image he projects seems at home here in Iowa: the straight-shooter, the truth-teller, the unadorned Kansan from the prairie.

   • 2006 December 25, Dan Rather, “A Fond Farewell: Ed Bradley”, in Time:

     And those lucky enough to be around him always knew who he was too — a gentleman of extraordinary character, a straight shooter and a pioneering journalist destined to be remembered.

2. (idiomatic) A person who is blunt, sometimes to the point of being harsh or offensive.
   • 1966 February 18, “The Administration: Unburdening Bill”, in Time:

     A 1934 journalism graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Fleming, who has a reputation as an abrasive straight shooter, was a newspaper and magazine correspondent before joining ABC in 1957.

   • 1991 September 11, Claire Smith, “On Baseball: Green Could Mean Luck for the Mets”, in New York Times, retrieved 4 September 2012:

     [B]aseball's equivalent of John Wayne, one Dallas Green, will likely come in, take some players by the scruffs of their necks, tell them to shut up and play in a fundamentally sound way. . . . The human boom box, the relentless straight shooter, will keep all comers more than well aware of where he stands.

   • 2008, David Michaels, Tom Clancy, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, →ISBN, page 177:

     Keating . . . was an impatient taskmaster, but he was also a straight shooter who never held back a punch. . . . "Mitchell, you look like crap."

3. (informal, recreational drugs) A type of pipe used for smoking cocaine.
   • 2007, Martin L. Stockton, Hustler's Greed, →ISBN, page 3:

     This homemade crack tool was known as a straight shooter, which sped up the effects of smoking rock cocaine allowing it to reach the lungs faster.

Synonyms

• (person who is honest and forthright): square shooter

Related terms

• play it straight
• shoot someone straight
• straight-shooting
• straight talk

See also

• tell it like it is

References

• “straight shooter”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.