the.com/glue gun

means A handheld tool that melts solid sticks of adhesive and dispenses the hot, fast-setting liquid through a nozzle, used for crafts and quick repairs.

from A plain compound of two old words doing exactly what they say. 'Glue' descends through Old French 'glu' (birdlime, a sticky substance) from Late Latin 'glus, glut-,' related to the family that also gives us 'gluten' — the sticky stuff. 'Gun' is the older, odder word: Middle English 'gunne,' thought to come from a Scandinavian woman's name, 'Gunnhildr' (both parts meaning 'war'), once playfully bestowed on a large medieval engine of war. So the name simply borrows the shape and trigger of a firearm for a device that shoots glue — a 20th-century coinage arriving with the hot-melt adhesive technology itself.