A pistol is a type of handgun. The word "pistol" first appeared in English c. 1570, when early handguns were produced in Europe, and is derived from the Middle French pistolet (c. 1550), meaning a small gun or knife. In colloquial usage, the word "pistol" is often used to describe any type of handgun, inclusive of revolvers (which have a single barrel and a separate cylinder housing multiple chambers) and the pocket-sized derringers (which are often multi-barrelled).

The most common type of pistol used in the contemporary era is the semi-automatic pistol, while the older single-shot and manual repeating pistols are now rarely seen and used primarily for nostalgic hunting and historical reenactment, and the fully-automatic machine pistols are uncommon in civilian usage because of their generally poor recoil-controllability and strict laws and regulations governing their manufacture and sale.