shot across the bows

shot across the bows (plural shots across the bows)

1. Alternative form of shot across the bow
   • 1856 March, “Monthly Summary. [United States.]”, in George R[ex] Graham, editor, Graham’s American Monthly Magazine of Literature and Art, volume XLVIII, number 3, Philadelphia, Pa.: George R. Graham, […], →OCLC, page 267, column 1:

     President [Franklin] Pierce, like a great war ship, fired two shots across the bows of the Congress, to bring matters to.

   • 1979, P[eter] B[rian] Medawar, “What shall I Do Research on?”, in Advice to a Young Scientist (Alfred P. Sloan Foundation series), New York, N.Y.: Basic Books, →ISBN, pages 13–14:

     Scientists considered collectively are remarkably single-minded in their views about what is important and what is not. If a graduate student gives a seminar and no one comes or no one asks a question, it is very sad, but not so sad as the question gallantly put by a senior or a colleague that betrays that he hasn't listened to a word. But it is a warning sign, a shot across the bows.

   • 1992, H[erbert] L[ionel] A[dolphus] Hart, “Postscript”, in The Concept of Law, 3rd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, published 2012, →ISBN, pages 238–239:

     Though I have fired a few shots across the bows of some of my critics, notably the late Professor Lon Fuller and Professor R[onald] M[yles] Dworkin, I have hitherto made no general comprehensive reply to any of them; I have preferred to watch and learn from a most instructive running debate in which some of the critics have differed from others as much as they have differed from me.

   • 2013, Lucinda Riley, chapter 28, in The Midnight Rose, London: Macmillan, →ISBN; republished London: Pan Books, 2014, →ISBN, page 379:

     Perhaps her refusal to marry him would be the shot across the bows Jack needed to help him face his demons. But somehow she doubted it.

• shots across the bow