In common usage, Winchester rifle usually means any of the lever-action

Lever-action

Lever-action is a type of firearm action which uses a lever located around the trigger guard area, to load fresh cartridges into the chamber of the barrel when the lever is worked. Most lever-action firearms are rifles, but lever-action shotguns and a few pistols have also been made...

 rifles manufactured by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company

Winchester Repeating Arms Company

The Winchester Repeating Arms Company was a prominent American maker of repeating firearms, located in New Haven, Connecticut. The Winchester brand is today used under license by two subsidiaries of the Herstal Group, Fabrique Nationale of Belgium and the Browning Arms Company of Morgan, Utah.-...

, though the company has also manufactured many rifles of other action types. Winchester rifles were among the earliest repeating rifle

Repeating rifle

A repeating rifle is a single barreled rifle containing multiple rounds of ammunition. These rounds are loaded from a magazine by means of a manual or automatic mechanism, and the action that reloads the rifle also typically recocks the firing action...

s; the Winchester repeater is colloquially known as "The Gun that Won the West" for its predominant role in the hands of Western settlers.
In 1848, inventor Walter Hunt

Walter Hunt

Walter Hunt was an American mechanic. He lived and worked in New York state. Through the course of his work he became renowned for being a prolific inventor, notably of the lockstitch sewing machine , safety pin , a forerunner of the Winchester repeating rifle, a successful flax spinner, knife...

 of New York patented his "Volition Repeating Rifle" incorporating a tubular magazine, which was operated by two levers and complex linkages.