‘手枪’ (shǒu qiāng) literally means ‘hand gun’ — combining 手 (shǒu), meaning ‘hand’, and 枪 (qiāng), meaning ‘gun’ or ‘rifle’. It refers specifically to a compact firearm designed to be held and fired with one or two hands, commonly called a handgun or pistol in English. Unlike larger firearms like rifles or shotguns, hand guns are portable and often used by law enforcement, military personnel, or licensed civilians for self-defense or sport shooting.

The term is neutral and widely used in both formal and informal contexts — in news reports, safety training, crime fiction, and everyday conversation. It does not carry inherent connotations of legality or morality; context determines whether it’s described as ‘a police officer’s service weapon’ or ‘an illegally possessed firearm’. Note that in Chinese, the word is always written as two characters without spacing, and it functions exclusively as a noun — never as a verb or adjective.