Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Cannon
Can′non
,Noun.
pl.
Cannons
(#)
, collectively Cannon
. 1.
A great gun; a piece of ordnance or artillery; a firearm for discharging heavy shot with great force.
☞ Cannons are made of various materials, as iron, brass, bronze, and steel, and of various sizes and shapes with respect to the special service for which they are intended, as intended, as siege, seacoast, naval, field, or mountain, guns. They always aproach more or less nearly to a cylindrical from, being usually thicker toward the breech than at the muzzle. Formerly they were cast hollow, afterwards they were cast, solid, and bored out. The cannon now most in use for the armament of war vessels and for seacoast defense consists of a forged steel tube reinforced with massive steel rings shrunk upon it. Howitzers and mortars are sometimes called cannon. See
Gun
. 2.
(Mech.)
A hollow cylindrical piece carried by a revolving shaft, on which it may, however, revolve independently.
3.
(Printing.)
A kind of type. See
Canon
. Cannon ball
, strictly, a round solid missile of stone or iron made to be fired from a cannon, but now often applied to a missile of any shape, whether solid or hollow, made for cannon. Elongated and cylindrical missiles are sometimes called bolts; hollow ones charged with explosives are properly called shells.
– Cannon bullet
, a cannon ball
. [Obs.]
– Cannon cracker
, a fire cracker of large size.
– Cannon lock
, a device for firing a cannon by a percussion primer.
– Cannon metal
. See
– Gun Metal
. Cannon pinion
, the pinion on the minute hand arbor of a watch or clock, which drives the hand but permits it to be moved in setting.
– Cannon proof
, impenetrable by cannon balls.
– Cannon shot
. (a)
A cannon ball.
(b)
The range of a cannon.
Webster 1828 Edition
Cannon
CANNON
,Noun.
Definition 2024
Cannon
cannon
cannon
See also: Cannon
English
A cannon (artillery piece)
Noun
cannon (plural cannon or cannons)
- A complete assembly, consisting of an artillery tube and a breech mechanism, firing mechanism or base cap, which is a component of a gun, howitzer or mortar. It may include muzzle appendages.[3]
- A bone of a horse's leg, between the fetlock joint and the knee or hock.
- (historical) A large muzzle-loading artillery piece.
- (sports, billiards, snooker, pool) A carom.
- In English billiards, a cannon is when one's cue ball strikes the other player's cue ball and the red ball on the same shot; and it is worth two points.
- (baseball, figuratively, informal) The arm of a player that can throw well.
- He's got a cannon out in right.
- (engineering) A hollow cylindrical piece carried by a revolving shaft, on which it may, however, revolve independently.
- (printing) Alternative form of canon (a large size of type)
Usage notes
The unchanged plural is preferred in Great Britain and Ireland, while North Americans and Australians tend to use the regular plural cannons.
On aircraft, autocannons are sometimes called "cannons" for short.
Related terms
Translations
artillery piece
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bone of horse's leg — see cannon bone
large muzzle-loading artillery piece
billiard shot
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Verb
cannon (third-person singular simple present cannons, present participle cannoning, simple past and past participle cannoned)
- To bombard with cannons.
- (sports, billiards, snooker, pool) To play the carom billiard shot. To strike two balls with the cue ball
- The white cannoned off the red onto the pink.
- To fire something, especially spherical, rapidly.
- To collide or strike violently, especially so as to glance off or rebound.
- 1898, Rudyard Kipling, "The Maltese Cat" in The Day's Work,
- […] he heard the right-hand goal post crack as a pony cannoned into it&mdashcrack, splinter, and fall like a mast.
- 1952, C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Collins, 1998, Chapter 11,
- She ran down the stairs which she had come up so nervously that morning and cannoned into Edmund at the bottom.
- 1898, Rudyard Kipling, "The Maltese Cat" in The Day's Work,
Translations
to bombard with cannons
billiards: to play carom shot
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References
- ↑ Barnhart, Robert K.; Editor. The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology. 1995 HarperResource/HarperCollins P.102.
- ↑ Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (December 26, 2006).
- ↑ (JP 1-02 Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms).