half-cock 
noun
The partly raised position of the cock of a gun: although the hammer has a half-cock position, I would not carry this pistol with a chambered round...
- It was later differentiated from the ‘true’ flintlock by firearms scholars for whom the ‘true’ and original snaphaunce lock had a steel separate from the pan cover and a cock incapable of the half-cock safety position.
- Let's assume someone is loading the revolver properly with the hammer at its half-cock position.
- As he listened to their conversation, through a bug he planted, he pulled the hammer of his revolver back to half-cock and gently pushed out the loading gate.
Phrases
at half-cock
- malignant hyperpyrexia
- malignant hyperthermia
- malignantly
- malignant oedema
- malignant pustule
- malignation
- maligner
- malignity
- malignly
- malignment
- malihini
- malik
- Maliki
- Malikite
- malimbe
- Malines
- mal-influence
- malinger
- malingerer
- Malin Head
- Malinke
- Malinois
- Malinowskian
- Malinowski, Bronisław Kaspar
- malinowskite