To rifle means to search through something quickly and carelessly, usually looking for something specific while making a mess. When you rifle through your backpack hunting for a lost pencil, you're digging around, tossing things aside, not carefully organizing as you go. A burglar might rifle through desk drawers looking for valuables, leaving papers scattered everywhere.

The word suggests both speed and disorder. You wouldn't say someone rifled through a library card catalog if they searched methodically and neatly. The messiness is part of what makes it rifling rather than just searching.

Rifle also means a type of long gun with spiral grooves inside the barrel that make bullets spin for accuracy. Hunters use rifles, and soldiers carry them. The inside grooves that make the bullet spin are called rifling.

When you see rifle in a mystery novel, context tells you which meaning fits: “The detective rifled through the suspect's belongings” means searching messily, while “The officer secured the rifle as evidence” refers to the gun.