English

Some Minié balls

Noun

Minié ball ‎(plural Minié balls)

1. (historical) A muzzle-loading bullet with a hollow base, much used in the second half of the nineteenth century.
   • 1988, James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, Oxford 2004, p. 730:

     So intense was the firing that at one point just behind the southern lines an oak tree nearly two feet thick was cut down by minié balls.

   • 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage 2007, p. 112:

     Minié ball, judging from everybody else's wounds around that time.