An airgun is a gun that pushes out a small round pellet with air pressure, not with gunpowder. The “bang” of a normal gun comes from exploding powder; an airgun stores air (or a gas) and lets it shove the pellet out. People use them for sport, for shooting small animals, or as toys that still need care — a pellet can hurt an eye or break skin. It looks like a gun and is held like a gun, so students sometimes think it is “not a real gun” and therefore safe; it is weaker than a firearm, but it is not a toy in the soft sense. The word is also written air gun. Informal talk may say BB gun for a similar thing that fires little balls. In careful English, airgun stays with the air-pressure kind.

空氣槍