slingshot

noun

sling·shot ˈsliŋ-ˌshät

: a forked stick with an elastic band attached for shooting small stones

: a maneuver in auto racing in which a drafting car accelerates past the car in front by taking advantage of reserve power

: a dragster in which the driver sits behind the rear wheels

Examples of slingshot in a Sentence

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Every ten spaces or so is one that calls for a skill-testing competition between two teams—tug-of-war, a sack race, racing on stilts or targeting giant wooden geese by slingshot. —

John Last, Smithsonian Magazine, 11 Dec. 2024 Meanwhile, Voyager 1 used Saturn as a gravitational slingshot to power itself past Pluto. —

Greg Wehner, Fox News, 31 Oct. 2024 This speed suggests that the system’s star might be a hypervelocity star, an example of a rare class of stellar objects that have been sped up by past encounters with other stars—or even a gravitational slingshot from the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. —

Jonathan O'Callaghan, Scientific American, 30 Oct. 2024 The journey will take some 1.8 billion miles on a trajectory, taking it past Mars and then Earth, using the planet's gravity as a slingshot to then add speed for the track. —

Taylor Wilson, USA TODAY, 15 Oct. 2024 See all Example Sentences for slingshot