gun-for-hire

English

Noun

gun-for-hire (plural guns-for-hire)

1. A contract killer.
2. (by extension) A contractor.
   • 2023, Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood, page 128:

     After months of bitter disagreements and legal back-and-forth, he had finally given up and struck out on his own, but he'd met with a string of bad luck—a client who refused to pay, a flood, a false insurance claim—and he'd had to shut up shop; now he was working for a big construction firm as a gun for hire and telling anybody who would listen what a rotten hand he had been dealt.