arrowhead

From Middle English arewehede, arowhede, arowheved; equivalent to arrow + head.


WMD

weapon of mass destruction
weapon of mass destruction#English

Initialism of weapon of mass destruction.

ADM

initialism — see also weapon of mass destruction


PTA

en-noun

PTA (countable and uncountable, plural PTAs)

Their computer cannot issue a Permit to Acquire to somebody who does not have the appropriate category of licence; or whose licence is about to expire. I am hearing from lots of people who want to know why it's taking weeks, or even months, for the PTA to be issued, when the waiting period is supposed to be only 28 days. The reason is, of course, that the massive backlog of five-year licence renewals, caused by the under-resourcing of the Registry, is holding up PTA′s because they can't be issued until after the licence renewal is issued.

2003 October 21, CD, “NEWSLETTER FROM THE OFFICE OF JOHN TINGLE MLC 15.10.03”, in aus.politics.guns (Usenet):

I think that is the most meaningless sections of the law out of the whole thing, PTA for second and subsequent arms. They are likely processing hundreds of thousands of PTA′s weekly for absolutely no demonstratable purpose with tax payer monies.

2004 January 28, Seb, “NEWSLETTER FROM NSW SHOOTERS PARTY January 27 2004”, in aus.politics.guns (Usenet):

get your PTA, and then think about spending a few hundred on a more modern .22 and a scope.

2004 June 18, Lindsay, “Yaaaay. PTA in less than a month”, in aus.sport.shooting (Usenet):

Recently, people applying for a Permit to Acquire have received a letter back from the Firearms Registry saying they had to submit a Certificate of Inspection of their secure storage, before the application could be processed. This was a new thing, and, in the case of people who already have a firearm, was pretty pointless, since we all had our secure storage inspected in that great state-wide sweep; and unless the applicant's address had changed, there was little point in a new inspection. In any case, I had countless reports of people asking their local police to do a new inspection to go with the PTA and being told the police were much too busy to do all that again.

2006 February 22, CD, “NSW Shooters party Newsletter Feb 21 2006”, in aus.politics.guns (Usenet):

(Australia, firearms) Initialism of permit to acquire: a form lodged with the police to acquire a specific firearm; the authorisation subsequently acquired.


Star Wars

[ˈstɑɹ ˈwɔɹz]

[ˈstɑ˞ ˈwɔɹz]

From the original name of the science fantasy motion picture Star Wars (1977).

Strategic Defense Initiative
Strategic Defense Initiative

(informal, military) The United States Strategic Defense Initiative.


ride shotgun

en-verb

ride shotgun (third-person singular simple present rides shotgun, present participle riding shotgun, simple past rode shotgun, past participle ridden shotgun)

rides shotgun (present singular third-person)
riding shotgun (participle present)
rode shotgun (past)
ridden shotgun (participle past)

/ˌɹaɪd ˈʃɒtɡʌn/

/ˌɹaɪd ˈʃɑtɡʌn/

Charles J. Guiteau
James A. Garfield
National Publishing Company
The Straight Dope

Possibly from early-20th-century depictions in books and films of the 19th-century practice of a person armed with a rifle or shotgun riding next to a stagecoach driver to provide protection from bandits, etc.

nb...

Containing a Full Account of the Shooting of President Garfield, and All the Events from that Date until the Dastardly Wretch was Brought to Trial, and including a Full Account of All the Testimony of the Experts and Other Celebrated Witnesses; All the Speeches and Remarks Made by the Cunning Assassin during His Trial for Life; His Great Efforts to Escape the Gallows by Feigning Insanity, etc.; with All the Scenes and Incidents Attending this Very Interesting and Remarkable Trial.

refn

From H. H. Alexander (1882) “Introduction”, in The Life of Guiteau and the Official History of the Most Exciting Case on Record: Being the Trial of Guiteau for Assassinating Pres. Garfield. […], Philadelphia, Pa., Chicago, Ill., St. Louis, Mo.: National Publishing Company, →OCLC, plate between pages 56 and 57.

When both kids want to ride shotgun with Mom, they’ll just have to take turns.

This is the classic children's theatre touring vehicle, with just enough seating space for four actors (who traditionally fight like five-year-olds about who gets to ride shotgun) and the stage manager, who gets to drive.

1999, H. Mel Malton, chapter 8, in Cue the Dead Guy (A Polly Deacon Murder Mystery), Toronto, Ont.: Napoleon Publishing/RendezVous Press, →ISBN, page 59:

The memories of his ordeal had ridden shotgun with him the whole trip, but it was easier here, easier to worry about his father and Kate and this stupid marriage pact than to face what he'd left in Texas.

2009, B. J. Daniels [pseudonym; Barbara Heinlein], chapter 4, in Shotgun Bride (Harlequin Intrigue; 1125; Whitehorse, Montana: The Corbetts; 1), Don Mills, Ont.: Harlequin Enterprises, →ISBN, page 45:

Sissy rode shotgun with Clayton Red Bird driving his old Chevy Impala, the backseat crammed with guitars, a bass, microphones, leads, and all the other paraphernalia that they needed to play the gig in the Longhorn after the rodeo.

2014, Frances Washburn, “The Scenic Fourth of July Rodeo and Dance”, in The Red Bird All-Indian Traveling Band (Sun Tracks: An American Indian Literary Series; 77), Tucson, Ariz.: University of Arizona Press, →ISBN, page 5:

Before sending me out alone, the company assigned me two "ride-alongs" with its top driver, the legendary Marco, who went out with 280 packages the second day I rode shotgun with him, took his full lunch break, did not roll through a single stop sign, and was finished by sundown.

2018 December 25, Austin Murphy, “I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon.”, in Jeffrey Goldberg, editor, The Atlantic, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2019-10-22:

(US, idiomatic, by extension, slang) To ride in the front passenger seat of a vehicle, next to the driver.

voziti se na suvozačkom mjestu

to ride in the front passenger seat of a vehicle, next to the driver


shell

From Middle English schelle, from Old English sċiell, from Proto-West Germanic *skallju, from Proto-Germanic *skaljō, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH- (“to split, cleave”).
Compare West Frisian skyl (“peel, rind”), Dutch schil (“peel, skin, rink”), Low German Schell (“shell, scale”), Irish scelec (“pebble”), Latin silex (“pebble, flint”), siliqua (“pod”), Old Church Slavonic сколика (skolika, “shell”). More at shale.
Doublet of sheal.
* (computing): From being viewed as an outer layer of interface between the user and the operating-system internals.

cog

(weaponry) The casing of a self-contained single-unit artillery projectile.

(weaponry) A hollow, usually spherical or cylindrical projectile fired from a siege mortar or a smoothbore cannon. It contains an explosive substance designed to be ignited by a fuse or by percussion at the target site so that it will burst and scatter at high velocity its contents and fragments. Formerly called a bomb.

արկ

hollow usually spherical or cylindrical projectile fired from a mortar or a cannon

(weaponry) The cartridge of a breechloading firearm; a load; a bullet; a round.


shell

en-verb

shell (third-person singular simple present shells, present participle shelling, simple past and past participle shelled)

shells (present singular third-person)
shelling (participle present)
shelled (participle past)
shelled (past)

The guns shelled the enemy trenches.

There wasn’t even a shed there, and she was shelling the bush.

1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 203:

To bombard, to fire projectiles at, especially with artillery.


banger

→ Estonian: bänger

→ Finnish: bängeri

From bang + -er. The sausages were so called because of their excess water content and impervious skin, leading to the risk of explosion if not punctured before cooking.

He is also a former international chick banger.

2008, Dewan Gibson, The Imperfect Enjoyment, page 177:

A thing or person which bangs, in any sense.

(sexuality, slang) A person who has sex.

(automotive, slang) An old, worn-out car. From a stereotypical one backfiring, making banging noises.


explosive

en-adj

explosive (comparative more explosive, superlative most explosive)

more explosive (comparative)
most explosive (superlative)

From Latin explōs-, stem of the perfect passive participle of explōdō + the suffix -ive.

an explosive device

With the capability to, or likely to, explode.

اِنْفِجَارِيّ

with the capability to, or likely to, explode

Notes: A rule set that (very probably) results in explosive growth; certainly in area if not population.

1992 June 2, Dave Boll, “Variations on Conway's LIFE”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet):

For example, putting a 1 at (0: 1,1) will cause explosive growth in all directions, putting a 1 at (0: 0,2A) will cause pairs of diagonal cells in a 2x2 square to alternate on and off, putting a 1 at (1: 4,4) will cause all solid 1 areas to stay 1 for another cycle, etc.

1994 April 4, Robert Andreen, “CA rules”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet):

If the rule is further chosen so that active cells can (and must) expand on an inactive background but inactive cells can't do so on an active background (or vice versa), then non-explosive growth becomes possible.

2003 May 12, Ilmari Karonen, “Gliders in 4-neighbor semitotalistic 2D cellular automata”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet):

(cellular automata) Of a specific cellular automaton rule, tending to exhibit infinite and unpredictable growth when starting from finite random patterns.

the explosive consonants


explosive

The words of these songs were either without meaning, or derived from an idiom with which Watt, a very fair linguist, had no acquaintance. The open a sound was predominant, and the explosives k and g.

1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, published 1959, →OCLC:


tang

From Middle English tange, variant of tonge (“tongs, fang”), from Old Norse tangi (“pointed metal tool”), perhaps related to Old Norse tunga (“tongue”). But see also Middle Dutch tanger (“sharp, tart, pinching”).

ruoti

projecting part of an object by means of which it is secured to some other part

angel

part of small instrument inserted into handle

The rifle carried a vernier sight on the tang[…]

1985, Cormac McCarthy, chapter IV, in Blood Meridian […] , →OCLC:

A projecting part of an object by means of which it is secured to a handle, or to some other part.

(firearms) The projecting part of the breech of a musket barrel, by which the barrel is secured to the stock.


the bomb

en-noun

the bomb (usually uncountable, plural the bombs)

Attested in reference to nuclear weapons or the capacity to use them since 1932; see quotations, below. As slang for something excellent, the phrase is attested since the 1960s; compare go down a bomb, UK theatre slang during the 1950s meaning “be a major success”. For further etymology see bomb.

Pakistan and India both have the Bomb now.

The Cabinet, when faced with this proffered omnipotence, had recoiled in fear. True it was that their acute distaste for the bomb[…] did credit to their humanity, to their state of civilization.

1932, Harold Nicolson, “Public Faces”, in The Spectator, volume 149, page 558:

In my view, the tensions which have produced the “World with the Bomb” can be divided into roughly four classes.

1962, Kwame Nkruma, The World Without the Bomb: Selections from the Papers of “the Accra Assembly”, page 3:

First we got the bomb and that was good,
'Cause we love peace and motherhood.
Then Russia got the bomb, but that's O.K.,
'Cause the balance of power's maintained that way!

1965, Tom Lehrer (lyrics and music), “Who's Next” (track 5, side 2), in That Was The Year That Was:

(informal, often capitalized) The atomic bomb; the capability to launch a nuclear attack.


scimitar

First attested in 1548. From Middle French cimeterre (15c.) or directly from Italian scimitarra, possibly from an unknown Ottoman Turkish word, ultimately from Persian شمشیر (šamšir, “sword”). Doublet of shamshir.


weapon of mass destruction

weapon of mass destruction (plural weapons of mass destruction)

First attested in 1937 in referring to bombing campaigns during the Spanish Civil War.

Any human-made weapon causing indiscriminate large-scale death or destruction, especially a biological weapon, chemical weapon, nuclear weapon or radiological weapon.

Spanish Civil War
weapon of mass destruction

arma e shkatërrimit në masë

weapon causing large-scale death or destruction

大规模杀伤性武器

daai⁶ kwai¹ mou⁴ saat³ soeng¹ sing³ mou⁵ hei³


flak

flak (countable and uncountable, plural flaks)

Borrowed from German FlaK, short for Fliegerabwehrkanone (“anti aeroplane cannon”).

flack

adverse criticism and spokesperson senses

[…] to consider whether the city was in February 1945 an undefended city within the meaning of the 1907 Hague Convention, it will be necessary to examine the establishment and subsequent total dispersal of the city's flak batteries, before the date of the triple blow.

1964, David John Cawdell Irving, The Destruction of Dresden, page 74:

He was promoted to general of flak artillery on March 1, 1945, and ended the war as the general of the flak arm at OKL, the High Command of the Luftwaffe.

2007, Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr., Retreat to the Reich: The German Defeat in France, 1944, footnote, page 30:

Ground-based anti-aircraft guns firing explosive shells.

高射炮

ground-based anti-aircraft guns firing explosive shells

At 1057 we were just over the islands and at 1100 the tail gunner reported flak at six o'clock, below.

1943 November 29, “Target: Germany”, in Life, page 80:

1984, Steve Harris, "Aces High", Iron Maiden, Powerslave.
There goes the siren that warns of the air raid / Then comes the sound of the guns sending flak / Out for the scramble we've got to get airborne / Got to get up for the coming attack.

I could hear the fragments from the flak shells hitting the plane like someone throwing rocks at it.

1999, Brian O'Neill, Half a Wing, Three Engines and a Prayer, page 118:

2006, Edward Herman, Noam Chomsky, A Propaganda Model, in 2006 [2001], Meenakshi Gigi Durham, Douglas Kellner (editors), Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks, revised edition, page 277,
AIM head, Reed Irvine's diatribes are frequently published, and right-wing network flaks who regularly assail the “liberal media,” such as Michael Ledeen, are given Op-ed column space, sympathetic reviews, and a regular place on talk shows as experts.

(informal) A public-relations spokesperson.


sumpit

Borrowed from Malay sumpit (“blowpipe”).

The poison dart used in the sumpitan, or Malay blowpipe.


car bomb

An automobile laden with a large amount of explosives, and used as a bomb primarily in order to cause external damage.

An explosive device installed in an automobile with the primary purpose of killing the occupants of the car.

motorbom

An alcoholic beverage made by dropping a shot of liquor into a glass of beer.


harpoon

From Old French harpon, from Latin harpaga, a rare variant of Latin harpagō, from Ancient Greek ἁρπάγη (harpágē, “hook”), from ἁρπάζω (harpázō, “to snatch away, to carry off, to seize, to captivate”). Sense and spelling perhaps influenced by Dutch harpoen (“harpoon”). Doublet of harpagon.

A spearlike weapon with a barbed head used in hunting whales and large fish.

A sharp tip within a disposable syringe, used to penetrate the stopper.


torpedo

* Borrowed from Latin torpēdō (“a torpedo fish; numbness, torpidity, electric ray”), from torpeō (“I am stiff, numb, torpid; I am astounded; I am inactive”) + -ēdō (noun suffix), from Proto-Indo-European *ster- (“stiff”). In the military sense coined by Robert Fulton in 1805. Cognate with Old English steorfan (“to die”), Ancient Greek στερεός (stereós, “solid”), Lithuanian tirpstu (“to become rigid”), Old Church Slavonic трупети (trupeti).
* (type of car): From 1908, after "the Torpedo", a car designed by Captain Theo Masui.

cog

Faire Queene, forbeare to angle for the fiſh, / Which being caught, ſtrikes him that takes it dead, / I meane that vile Torpedo, Gaueſton, / That now I hope flotes on the Iriſh Seas

1594, Christopher Marlow[e], The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, →OCLC, [Act I]:

The man has been changed into an artificial monster by the station in which he is born, and the consequent homage that benumbed his faculties like the torpedo's touch […].

1790, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men:

"A childhood Misadventure with a Torpedo," Dixon, with a brief move of his head toward Mason, confides, "— thus his Sensitivity at all References to the,"— whispering,— "electrickal!"

1997, Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon, New York: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 286:

(zoology) An electric ray of the genus Torpedo.


IBM

en-noun

IBM (countable and uncountable, plural IBMs)

/ˈˌʌɪbiːˈɛm/

Alternative form: ICBM

They see this last possibility in an international agreement to stop further atomic and thermonuclear bomb tests and halt the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (IBMs).

1956 June, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, volume 12, number 6, page 186:

Today we need a defense against IBM attack. When as chief of R&D I urged Army Ordnance to develop an antimissile missile, I heard repeatedly that you can't hit a bullet with a bullet, so it is impossible to develop such a missile.

1987, Kenneth David Nichols, The Road to Trinity, page 294:

Thus, they limit to a strictly defined number the quantity of armed IBMs in the USSR and the United States, as well as ballistic missiles of submarines.

1990, William Elliott Butler, Perestroika and International Law, page 155:

(weaponry) Initialism of intercontinental ballistic missile.


magnum

From Latin magnum, neuter of magnus (“great”).
* (bottle): Ellipsis of magnum bonum.
* (handgun): Name registered 1935 by Smith & Wesson Inc., of Springfield, Massachusetts.

(firearms) A powerful firearm cartridge, often derived from a shorter, less powerful cartridge calibre that uses the same bullet.


Panzerfaust

Apparently the air raid had caught the Volkssturm soldier in the village as he was transporting a supply of six panzerfausts in a handcart to another unit. Klemment wished he would hand over the panzerfausts to them, because he knew the Americans had tanks, and Klemment's unit had nothing in their arsenal to stop the metal monsters.

2014, Leo Barron, Patton at the Battle of the Bulge, Penguin, →ISBN:

A light, single-shot anti-tank grenade launcher developed in Germany in the latter stages of the Second World War.


hammer and sickle

hammer and sickle (plural hammers and sickles)

The symbol was developed by Yevgeny Kamzolkin in 1917, based on antetypes like hammer and pick (symbol of mining). The hammer represents workers, while the sickle represents farmers.

He remembers the [train] journeys fondly—the vast expanses of the Soviet empire rolling by, the glasses of tea served in metal cup holders embossed with the hammer and sickle.

December 7 2022, Simon Shuster, “2022 Person of the Year: Volodymyr Zelensky”, in Time:

A depiction of a sickle crossed with a hammer, used as a symbol of communism and the Soviet Union.


Katyusha

Borrowed from Russian Катю́ша (Katjúša) diminutive of Ка́тя (Kátja, “Katya”), in turn diminutive of Екатери́на (Jekaterína, “Katherine”), named after a popular wartime song.

The Russian Katyusha is a multiple rocket thrower of which nothing is known except what can be seen on released photographs.

1944, Willy Ley, Rockets: The Future of Travel Beyond the Stratosphere, Viking Press, page 77:

A type of artillery rocket launcher consisting of an array of rockets mounted on a truck, originated in the Soviet Union.


claymore

Coordinate term: claybeg

A large two-handed sword historically used by the Scottish Highlanders.

Alternative letter-case form of Claymore (“antipersonnel mine”)


Kalashnikov

/kəˈlæʃnəˌkɑf/

Named after Russian inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov (1919–2013), from Russian Кала́шников (Kalášnikov).

named-after

So, we are prepared to bear arms and yesterday we were given Kalashnikovs so we will be able to resist if Russian forces will come to Kyiv.

2022 February 25, Kira Rudik, 1:36 from the start, in Ukrainian parliament member says she's armed and ready to fight, CNN:

A particular model of Russian assault rifle.


shoulder

From Middle English schuldre, sholder, shulder, schulder, from Old English sculdra, sculdor (“shoulder”), from Proto-West Germanic *skuldru (“shoulder”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps related to Proto-Germanic *skelduz (“shield”), see shield. Cognate with Old Frisian skuldere (“shoulder”) (West Frisian skouder (“shoulder”)), Middle Low German scholder (“shoulder”), Low German Schuller (“shoulder”), Dutch schouder (“shoulder”), German Schulter (“shoulder”).

inh

you can't put an old head on young shoulders

(of an object) The portion between the neck and the body.

(firearms) The angled section between the neck and the main body of a cartridge.


blunderbuss

From Dutch donderbus (“blunderbuss”, literally “thunder gun”), which was altered under the influence of blunder.

der

We fired the blunderbuss several times by way of salute, and soon after landed at the bank near the village of the Mahahas, or Shoe Indians, and were received by a crowd of people, who came to welcome our return.

1817, Merriweather Lewis, William Clark, Travels to the Source of the Missouri River, and Across the American Continent to the Pacific Ocean, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, page 354:

One of the most picturesque of the old flintlock guns is the blunderbuss, which was often carried by coach guards for protection against highwaymen.

June 1942, Carl G. Erich, “Flintlock Blunderbuss”, in Popular Science:

The blunderbuss never gained great favor in the American colonies or early United States.

2007, Norm Flayderman, Flayderman's Guide to Antique American Firearms, Gun Digest Books, →ISBN, page 764:

An old style of muzzleloading firearm and early form of shotgun with a distinctive short, large caliber barrel that is flared at the muzzle, therefore able to fire scattered quantities of nails, stones, shot, etc. at short range.

բլանբերզում

old style of firearm with a distinctive large opening at the muzzle


Nagasaki

Borrowed from Japanese 長崎(ながさき) (Nagasaki).

Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

VINCENT: Tens of thousands killed before sundown; nobody's killed people that fast since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

2004, Stuart Beattie, Collateral, DreamWorks Pictures:

A port city, the capital and largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture, in southwestern Kyushu, Japan, famous as the country's early modern entrepot and for its nuclear bombing on 9 August 1945 at the end of World War II.


gunpowder

en-noun

gunpowder (countable and uncountable, plural gunpowders)

/ˈɡʌnˌpaʊdə/

/ˈɡʌnˌpaʊdɚ/

They have been a bold, heroic, and purely self dependent nation, never having either courted,—or been subdued by—other Tribes or Europeans. But what early mind—a power—could face gunpowder and the ﬁrelocks? Hence their annihilation!

ca. 1823, William E. Cormack, Cormack Papers, page 19/84 (note: on the annihilation of the Beothuk):

An explosive mixture of saltpetre (potassium nitrate), charcoal and sulphur; formerly used in gunnery but now mostly used in fireworks.


gunpowder

en-verb

gunpowder (third-person singular simple present gunpowders, present participle gunpowdering, simple past and past participle gunpowdered)

gunpowders (present singular third-person)
gunpowdering (participle present)
gunpowdered (participle past)
gunpowdered (past)

/ˈɡʌnˌpaʊdə/

/ˈɡʌnˌpaʊdɚ/

[…] he was […] never getting into quarrels with his neighbors and gunpowdering them out of house and home. His subjects loved him.

1875, John H. Kingsbury, Kingsbury Sketches, page 54:


gunpowder

Possibly due to its smell resembling gunpowder during the British Raj.

/ˈɡʌnˌpaʊdə/

/ˈɡʌnˌpaʊdɚ/

Some restaurants try and give their dosas the "ethnic" touch by slipping along a small dish of mulaga podi-gunpowder mixed with oil as well, but that isn't always enough.

1989, Bombay: The City Magazine, page 26:

It was a hardcore Andhra lunch from a restaurant famous for its lunch meals. And that is where I had my first run-in with 'gunpowder'. And to be honest, I hated it.

2015 June 12, Priyadarshini Nandy, “South India's Spice Hero: How to Make the Famous Gunpowder”, in NDTV:

In fact, I’ve long suspected that the popularity of gunpowder or molagapodi outside South India has little to do with the burst of flavours it serves.

2020 May 27, Pooja Pillai, “The Back Burner: Homemade molagapodi is easier than you think”, in The Indian Express:

(India, informal) Idli podi/milagai podi; ground-up dry spices mixed with oil and ghee and served alongside idli or dosa.


pistol

Probably from Middle French pistole, or via Middle English pistolet, from Middle French pistolet (“small firearm or small dagger”).
The origin is unclear, if via German to Romance probably from Middle High German forms like pischulle from Czech píšťala (“firearm”, literally “tube, pipe”), from Proto-Slavic *piščalь, from *piskati, *piščati (“to squeak, whistle”), from Proto-Balto-Slavic *pīṣk-.
Alternatively, if from Romance to German, from or related to Italian pistolese (“short dagger”), from Italian Pistoia (“a Tuscan town noted for its gunsmithing”).

der

(American football) An offensive formation in which the quarterback receives the snap at a distance behind the center, but closer than in a shotgun formation, with a running back lined up behind him.


yield

en-verb

yield (third-person singular simple present yields, present participle yielding, simple past yielded or (obsolete) yold, past participle yielded or (obsolete) yolden)

yields (present singular third-person)
yielding (participle present)
yielded (past)
yold (obsolete past)
yielded (participle past)
yolden (obsolete participle past)

From Middle English yielden, yelden, ȝelden (“to yield, pay”), from Old English ġieldan (“to pay”), from Proto-West Germanic *geldan, from Proto-Germanic *geldaną (“to pay”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰeldʰ- (“to pay”).
Cognates
Cognate with Scots yield (“to yield”), North Frisian jilden (“to pay”), Saterland Frisian Saterland Frisian jäilde (“to be valid; matter; count; be worth”), West Frisian jilde (“to pay”), Low German Low German gellen, Dutch gelden (“to apply, count, be valued, be regarded”), German gelten (“to apply, count, be valued, be regarded”), Icelandic gjalda (“to pay, yield, give”), Danish gælde (“to apply, count, be valued, be regarded”), Norwegian Bokmål gjelde.

cog

to end all resistance because of loss of hope

because of helplessness and extreme weakness

Indo-European p- yields Germanic f-.

(linguistics) To produce a particular sound as the result of a sound law.


yield

en-noun

yield (countable and uncountable, plural yields)

From Middle English ȝeld, from Old English ġield, from Proto-West Germanic *geld, from Proto-Germanic *geldą (“reward, gift, money”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰeldʰ- (“to pay”).
Cognates
Compare West Frisian jild, Dutch geld, Low German and German Geld, Danish gæld, Swedish gäld, Icelandic gjald. See also geld.

inh

A product; the quantity of something produced.

(engineering, material science) yield strength of a material.

The explosive energy value of a bomb, especially a nuke, usually expressed in tons of TNT equivalent.


tertiary

English numerals#Ordinal numbers
Peterhouse, Cambridge
University of Cambridge

PIE word
 *tréyes
Borrowed from the Latin tertiārius (“of the third part or rank”), from tertius (“third”) (from Proto-Indo-European *tr̥tyós, whence English third) + -ārius (whence the English suffix -ary); compare the French tertiaire.

bor

a tertiary alcohol, amine, or salt

If, on the other hand, we remember that a tertiary monoamine, such as must be formed by the final methylation of the ammonia fragment in aniline when submitted to the action of an alcohol chloride, is invariably converted into an ammonium compound it must appear rather strange that in the process above alluded to only tertiary, and never any quartery bases are observed.

1873 January 3, A[ugust] W[ilhelm von] Hofmann, “Synthesis of Aromatic Monoamines by Intramolecular Atomic Interchange”, in William Crookes, editor, The Chemical News and Journal of Physical Science: A Journal of Practical Chemistry in All Its Applications to Pharmacy, Arts, and Manufactures, volume XXVII, number 684, London: Henry Gillman, Boy Court, Ludgate Hill, E.C., →OCLC, page 1, column 1:

(chemistry) Possessing some quality in the third degree; especially having been subjected to the substitution of three atoms or radicals.


tertiary

English numerals#Ordinal numbers
Lay Carmelites
Peterhouse, Cambridge
Saint-Étienne Cathedral
University of Cambridge

My principal objection is against the compound or derivative tints, given under the denominations of secondaries and tertiaries.

1817 August 16, Thomas Hargreaves, “XXI. On the Work Entitled ‘Chromatics;’ or, An Essay on the Analogy and Harmony of Colours. By Mr. T. Hargreaves.”, in Alexander Tilloch, editor, The Philosophical Magazine and Journal: Comprehending the Various Branches of Science, the Liberal and Fine Arts, Geology, Agriculture, Manufactures and Commerce, volume 50, number 232, London: Printed by Richard and Arthur Taylor, Shoe Lane […], →OCLC, page 128:

[Rudolf] Arnheim suggested that the capacity of activating tensions is to be found in the tertiary hues, which are unbalanced mixtures of primaries that are present in different quantities. This peculiar relationship between tertiaries must be distinguished from the interaction of complementary colors that occurs when primaries and secondaries are coupled.

1993, Augusto Garau, “Introduction: A Theory of Color Mixtures”, in Nicola Bruno, transl., Color Harmonies, Chicago, Ill., London: University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 3:

A gigaton-scale weapon would of necessity be a three-stage design (incorporating a fusion tertiary - likely with its own massive fission tamper - in addition to the fission primary and fission-jacketed fusion secondary), as a reasonably-sized primary would likely have difficulty imploding to ignition the enormous secondary that would be required to reach a one-gigaton yield with a two-stage thermonuclear.

thermonuclear weapon
thermonuclear weapon

(military) A large stage in some extremely powerful thermonuclear weapons (resembling a greatly-enlarged secondary) which is compressed by the explosion of the secondary until ignition of nuclear fusion takes place, in much the same manner as the secondary is imploded by the primary, and which can allow for the attainment of yields of many tens or even hundreds of megatons, and likely even greater; not used in modern weapons due to a greater focus on the accurate use of sub-megaton weapons, the tremendous size of weapons incorporating a tertiary, and the lack of targets whose destruction would necessitate the use of a three-stage weapon.

Tertiaries living in places where there is no Church of the Order or of the Third Order can gain all the indulgences they would gain visiting such a church, by visiting their respective parish church, or, where there is no parochial church, by visiting another church or public oratory, and fulfilling the other conditions.

1952, Dominican Tertiaries’ Manual: For the Daily Use of Private and Fraternity Tertiaries of the Third Order of St. Dominic, 1st rev. edition, New York, N.Y.: Third Order of St. Dominic, published 1954, →OCLC, page 362:

Immediately after her arrival in Ferrara, while she was still striving to secure the foundation of her exemplary reformed community of Dominican tertiaries, [Lucia] Brocadelli also renewed her attempts to enhance [Girolamo] Savonarola's saintly reputation.

2008, Tamar Herzig, “The Power of Visions: Lucia Brocadelli and Osanna Andreasi”, in Savonarola’s Women: Visions and Reform in Renaissance Italy, Chicago, Ill.; London: University of Chicago Press; large print edition, Richmond, B.C.: ReadHowYouWant.com Ltd., 2010, page 146

(Roman Catholicism) A member of a Roman Catholic third order; a layperson who participates in activities similar to those engaged in by men and women who take religious vows (respectively the first and second orders), and who may wear some elements of an order's habit such as a scapular.

terziario

Roman Catholicism: member of a third order


bomber

(aviation, military) A military aircraft designed to carry and drop bombs.

chidí naatʼáʼiʼtsoh beeʼeldǫǫh bikǫʼ neiyéhé

A few years ago, the leather bomber was a gold mine for retailers and a gravy train for vendors. Consumers were crazy for them.

1991 March 18, Jeff Black, “The Bomber Jacket Is Taking Lots of Flak”, in DNR, volume 21, number 53, →ISSN, page 13:

First singer and guitarist Marcus Mumford, wearing a black suit, then bassist Ted Dwane, in leather bomber and T-shirt.[…]

2012 November 15, Tom Lamont, “How Mumford & Sons became the biggest band in the world”, in The Guardian:

To bomb the system is to saturate MTA subway cars with one's signatures. ln the 1980s, certain writers were identified as bombers because they had mastered all disciplines of the form: insides, throw-ups, window-downs, top-to-bottoms, […]

2002, Ivor Miller, Aerosol kingdom: subway painters of New York City, page 195:


bomber

en-adj

bomber (comparative more bomber, superlative most bomber)

more bomber (comparative)
most bomber (superlative)

(climbing, slang) Completely solid and secure, usually referring to some form of protective gear.


blackjack

en-noun

blackjack (countable and uncountable, plural blackjacks)

→ Polish: blackjack

(card games) A variant of hearts where the Jack of Spades is the penalty card.

The flag (i.e., a jack) traditionally flown by pirate ships; popularly thought to be a white skull and crossed bones on a black field (the Jolly Roger).

The pain is sometimes like the dull, heavy thud of being hit with a lead-filled blackjack; other times like a wizard is reaching deep below the skin and ripping muscles, tendons, and nerves.

2016, Justin O. Schmidt, The Sting of the Wild, Johns Hopkins University Press,, →ISBN, page 131:

(weaponry) A small, flat, blunt, usually leather-covered weapon loaded with heavy material such as lead or ball bearings, intended to inflict a blow to the head that renders the victim unconscious with diminished risk of lasting cranial trauma.

A little creek ran through the land, and the prairie rolled a little there, too. Nothing but blackjacks for miles around it, but on that section, because of the water, I suppose, there were elms and persimmons and cottonwoods and even a grove of pecans.

A steep slope rose, crested by stunted blackjacks.

1931, William Faulkner, Sanctuary, Library of America, published 1985, page 20:


cartridge

/ˈkɑɹtɹɪd͡ʒ/

Corruption of earlier cartage, from French cartouche, from Italian cartoccio (“roll of paper”), from Medieval Latin carta (“paper”). Doublet of cartouche.

Cartridge (firearms)
Magnetic tape data storage
cartridge

Still, a dozen men with rifles, and cartridges to match, stayed behind when they filed through a white aldea lying silent amid the cane, and the Sin Verguenza swung into slightly quicker stride.

1907 January, Harold Bindloss, chapter 7, in The Dust of Conflict, 1st Canadian edition, Toronto, Ont.: McLeod & Allen, →OCLC:

(firearms) The package consisting of the bullet, primer, and casing containing gunpowder; a round of ammunition.


shank

From Middle English schanke, from Old English sċanca (“leg”), from Proto-West Germanic *skankō, from Proto-Germanic *skankô (compare West Frisian skonk, Low German Schanke, German Schenkel (“shank, leg”), Danish skank, Norwegian skank, Swedish skänkel), from *skankaz (compare Old Norse skakkr (“wry, crooked”)), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)keng- (compare Middle Irish scingim (“I spring”), Ancient Greek σκάζω (skázō, “to limp”).

The handle of a pair of shears, connecting the ride to the neck.

Alternative form: yank

LBC's tryna blackball me / And tryna blame your boy for knife crime (Like, what?) / I don't use a shank, I got money in the bank / Man, I'd rather do a drive-by

2017, Stormzy, Mura Masa (lyrics and music), “Mr Skeng” (track 1), in Gang Signs & Prayer, performed by Stormzy:

One of the shot callers' responsibilities was to control the shanks within the prison population—the crude homemade knives used for stabbing another prisoner.

2019, Casey Diaz, Mike Yorkey, The Shot Caller […] , Emanate Books, →ISBN, page 76:

The end or remainder, particularly of a period of time.

the shank of the morning

AMANDA: Going now? You're joking! Why, it's only the shank of the evening, Mr. O’Connor!

1945, Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie, page 92:

The main part or beginning of a period of time.


shank

en-verb

shank (third-person singular simple present shanks, present participle shanking, simple past and past participle shanked)

shanks (present singular third-person)
shanking (participle present)
shanked (participle past)
shanked (past)

(slang) To stab, especially with an improvised blade.


uzi

Named after Uziel Gal (1923–2002), the Israeli army officer who designed it.

A type of compact submachine gun, having a caliber of 9 millimeters with ammunition housed in the grip of the weapon.


flyer

→ Finnish: flaijeri

→ French: flyer

→ German: Flyer

→ Korean: 플라이어 (peullaieo)

→ Portuguese: flyer

From fly + -er (agent noun suffix).
With regard to the sense "female kangaroo": because of the high speed at which they move.

طَيَّار

someone who pilots or rides in an airplane

(firearms) A stray shot away from the group on a target.


gunmetal

en-noun

gunmetal (countable and uncountable, plural gunmetals)

gunmetal:

Yet even asleep, a Sabre, Jaguar, Harrier, Phantom, Falcon or Eagle holds the eye as a design classic, and that worrisome beauty is still there close up—the cared for, nurtured, spoiled feel, the expensive finish, the quality of the materials, the craftsmanship evident in the flush rivets, the highly polished canopy, the gunmetal sheen of the external instrument sensors, each carefully protected by rubber sheaths with flapping red tags to remind the pilot to take them off before flight.

1999, Ivan Rendall, “Preface”, in Rolling Thunder: Jet Combat from World War II to the Gulf War, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: The Free Press, →ISBN, page ix:

(also attributive) A dark grey or bluish-grey colour; gunmetal grey.


gunnery

gunnery (usually uncountable, plural gunneries)

(countable) A place where guns are tested, or where people are trained in their use.


bunker

→ Catalan: búnquer

desctree

→ German: Bunker
→ Polish: bunkier
→ Romanian: buncăr

The origin of the noun is uncertain; the earliest sense is sense 6.1 (“box or chest, the lid of which serves as a seat”), from Scots bunker (“bench; pew; window-seat; sand pit (especially in golf); coal receptacle; sleeping berth, bunk”), from Early Scots bunker, bunkur, bonker (“a chest or box, often serving as a seat”), probably from Old Norse bunki (“a heap”) (probably whence bunk (“sleeping berth in a ship, train, etc.”)), from Proto-Germanic *bunkô (“a heap, pile; a bump, lump, a crowd”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *bʰenǵʰ- (“thick”) or *bʰeg- (“to billow, swell; to arch, bend, curve (?)”). Compare Middle Low German bunge (“drum, container”), Middle High German bunge (“drum”). Sense 1 (“hardened shelter designed to protect the inhabitants from falling bombs or other attacks”) was derived from German Bunker during World War II, which was itself from bunker (“large bin or container for storing coal”) (sense 5).
The verb is derived from the noun.

cog

Among tank engines, the 0-6-2 wheel arrangement was by far the most numerous, there being nearly 450 of this arrangement, which offers the advantage of good power and adhesive weight, coupled with adequate tank and bunker capacity, within a limited compass.

1939 September, D. S. Barrie, “The Railways of South Wales”, in The Railway Magazine, Westminster, London: IPC Transport Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 161:

The bunkers of these engines hold enough coal for one round journey of 120½ miles, and water is taken in each direction at Hexham.

1941 December, “Notes and News: A Tank Engine's 241-mile Day”, in Railway Magazine, page 569:

(rail transport) The coal compartment on a tank engine.

(paintball) An obstacle used to block an opposing player's view and field of fire.


bunker

en-verb

bunker (third-person singular simple present bunkers, present participle bunkering, simple past and past participle bunkered)

bunkers (present singular third-person)
bunkering (participle present)
bunkered (participle past)
bunkered (past)

попадам в пясъчника

to hit (a golf ball) into a bunker; to place (a golfer) in the position of having a golf ball in a bunker

As troops swarmed the streets below and gun battles continued to rage, I bunkered in a room on the top floor of a building in the middle of the red zone. Redshirt spokesman Sean Boonpracong sought refuge there too. Protesters burned a train station below, hurling tyres on to an already roaring blaze across the tracks.

2010 May 19, Ben Doherty, “Thai soldiers arrest protest leaders in bloody 'final crackdown'”, in The Guardian:

More than 10,000 people were bunkering in 20 emergency shelters across the disaster zone, not all of them cyclone-rated.

2012 September 17, Michael McKenna, Tony Koch, “Cyclone Yasi crosses coast in North's darkest hour”, in The Australian:

The Kyiv Zoo staff and their families are bunkering at the zoo as they care for the animals housed there amid the war in Ukraine.

2022 March 6, Heather Hamilton, “Kyiv Zoo staff and families care for nearly 4,000 animals amid war in Ukraine”, in Washington Examiner:

(intransitive) Often followed by down: to take shelter in a bunker or other place.


blank

From Middle English blank, blonc, blaunc, blaunche, from Anglo-Norman blonc, blaunc, blaunche, from Old French blanc, feminine blanche, from Frankish *blank (“gleaming, white, blinding”), from Proto-Germanic *blankaz (“white, bright, blinding”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleyǵ- (“to shine”). Akin to Old High German blanch (“shining, bright, white”) (German blank), Old English blanc (“white, grey”), blanca (“white steed”), Spanish blanco. More at blink, blind, blanch. Doublet of blanc.

cog

It was an unloaded gun that fired only blanks.

(firearms) Short for blank cartridge. [since the 19th century].


artillery

en-noun

artillery (countable and uncountable, plural artilleries)

From Middle English artillerie, from Old French artillerie (“collection of military engines, crossbows, lances etc.”), from artillier (“to equip, provide with contraptions”), alteration of atiller (“to arrange, adjust, put on clothes or, especially, pieces of armour”) (influenced by art), itself from Vulgar Latin *apticlō < **apticulō, from Latin aptō (“to make capable”).

der

And Ionathan gaue his artillery vnto his ladde, and said vnto him, Goe, cary them to the citie.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Samuel 20:40:

And Jonathan gave his weapons unto his lad, and said unto him, Go, carry them to the city. (American Standard Version)

The old walls […] were surely strong enough to keep out men without battering-rams, balistas, or artillery of any kind. [Footnote] Artillery is here used in its old English meaning for any kind of warlike engine. Cf. I Sam. XX. 40.

1866, Charles Kingsley, chapter 24, in Hereward the Wake, London: Nelson, page 330:

(archaic) Weapons, especially siege engines.


semtex

Genericized trademark Semtex, derived from the Czech name of the suburb of Pardubice where it was manufactured, Semtín, and ex(plosive).

A highly malleable general-purpose plastic explosive.


howitzer

Borrowed from Dutch houwitser, from German Haubitze, from Middle High German haufniz, from Czech houfnice, which was derived from houf (“flock, crowd”) + -nice. The Czech noun houf comes from Middle High German hufe (“heap”), from Old High German hūfo.

A cannon that combines certain characteristics of field guns and mortars, delivering projectiles with medium velocities, usually with relatively high trajectories; normally a cannon with a tube length of 20 to 30 calibers.


cap and ball

An early loading system for handguns where the percussion cap, powder, and bullet were separate components loaded individually into the gun. Typically used in early to mid 1800s.


sight radius

en-noun

sight radius (plural sight radiuses or sight radii)

sight radiuses (plural)
sight radii (plural)

(firearms) The distance between the front and rear sights of a firearm.


SMLE

Short Magazine Lee Enfield
w:Short Magazine Lee Enfield

Initialism of Short Magazine Lee Enfield: any of a series of bolt action rifles used by British and Commonwealth forces during the first half of the 20th century, normally made in .303 calibre.


solid slug

shotgun cartridge with a single projectile


lock time

(firearms) The time, usually measured in milliseconds, from when the trigger is pulled until the firing pin strikes the primer.


derringer

/ˈdɛɹɪndʒə(ɹ)/

Named after American gunsmith Henry Deringer Junior (1786–1868).

named-after

“Afraid? Oh no! they never interfere with me. […] And look here,” and diving her little hand into the bodice of her dress she produced a double-barrelled nickel-plated Derringer, “I always carry that loaded, and if anybody tried to touch me I should shoot him[…]”

1887, H[enry] Rider Haggard, chapter IV, in Allan Quatermain:

A type of very small, concealable pistol with one or two barrels, but without any loading system or magazine.


over and under

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-over and under.wav

A double-barreled shotgun (or infrequently a rifle), with one barrel placed on top of the other.


Gatling gun

/ˈɡætlɪŋ ˌɡʌn/

Named after American inventor Richard Jordan Gatling.

A type of gun, similar to a modern machine gun, with several barrels on a rotating frame.


Saturday-night special

en-noun

Saturday-night special (plural Saturday-night specials)

Attested from 1917, akin to Saturday-night pistol attested from 1915. Not entirely clear, but perhaps from phrases like “Saturday night pistol slaying” and “Saturday night pistol scrape” often found in early 20th century local crime reporting due to the fact that Saturday evening had been the peak time for homicides and similar crimes. Also likely to be enforced by the obsolete meaning of a cheap sale and usage of "Special" in the context of more powerful firearms like Colt Police Positive Special.

(business, dated) An unexpected takeover bid that gives its opponents little time to respond.


peep sight

(firearms) On some rifles, a type of sight where the shooter looks through a small aperture on the rear sight.


carbine

Ca. 1600, from French carabine. Doublet of carabine.

"Caught at last, and by those rascally Roundheads, whom you call patriots and saints, in a few minutes more I shall be shot—that is, if their clumsy carbines take good aim—to be sure they can fire near enough their mark not to miss...

1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter IX, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 69:

The lock-up was upstairs, a cage surrounded by six-inch wooden bars, guarded by a constable armed with a carbine.

1934, George Orwell, chapter 6, in Burmese Days:

Inside the wall they found "a small cannon aimed at the entrance of the gate, and all along the street soldiers were stationed and a few on horseback were riding up and down. One of these had his carbine strapped on his back, and swung under his arm was a three-foot beheading sword wrapped in red cloth. That section had been terrorized by robbers, and they were prepared."

December 2010, John Pollock, A Foreign Devil in China, World Wide Publications, →ISBN, page 45:

The man who fired the carbine, who fired the gun with the scope, who brought the lead horse down, was discovered sitting cross-legged in a cargo van.

2017, Sam Shepard, chapter 27, in Spy of the First Person, →ISBN, page 60:

կարաբին

weapon similar to a rifle but much shorter in length


Damascus barrel

Damascus barrel (plural Damascus barrels)

(firearms) A gun barrel formed by twisting and welding strips of metal around a hard die; no longer commonly used now due to its inability to handle high cartridge pressure on modern ammunition.


proxy

(Make sure you don't move!! Might trigger a proxy..!)

2001, "TripleRaid", Perfect Dark: Glitch FAQ http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/n64/file/198275/7974

the only means the Protectors have of delaying is by laying mines and Sentry Guns, and the Runners can only use the Magnums to blow up Proxies and Sentries.

2001, "CyricZ", Perfect Dark: FAQ/Walkthrough http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/n64/file/198275/8052

Usually, the only reason I play in Yoshi's Island is to have fun with the clouds - put proxies on them, taunt from them, whatever.

2002, "yc", Super Smash Bros.: Kirby http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/n64/file/198854/9449

You can also walk with your gun out, as this will limit your speed, allowing you do evade the proxies.

2006, "eatyourmumshead", Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Chaos Theory: Online Mode FAQ http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/file/924556/43994

(video games slang) Short for proximity mine.


outer

From Middle English outre, outer, outter, uttre, from Old English ūtre, ūtera, ūterra (“outer”), equivalent to out + -er. Compare German äußere (“outer”), Danish ydre (“outer”), Swedish yttre (“outer”), Icelandic ytri (“outer”).

(military, firearms) The fourth circle on a target, outside the inner and magpie.


Iron Curtain

/ˌaɪən ˈkɜːtn̩/

A specialized use of iron curtain (“(figurative) impenetrable barrier”), probably partly a calque of German eiserner Vorhang which was used in speeches in the 1940s that were translated into English. The English term appeared in telegrams from the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874–1965) to the President of the United States Harry S. Truman (1884–1972) in 1945, before being popularized in a speech given by Churchill at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, on 5 March 1946: see the quotations.

We liked the plain people of Russia wherever we met them. […] We were behind the "iron curtain" at last!

1920, Mrs. Philip Snowden [i.e., Ethel Snowden], “Making Our Plans”, in Through Bolshevik Russia, London; New York, N.Y.: Cassell and Company, →OCLC, pages 31 and 32:

In the east the iron curtain behind which, unseen by the eyes of the world, the work of destruction goes on, is moving steadily forward.

1945 May 3, Court Schwerin von Krosigk [i.e., Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk], “New foreign minister broadcasts”, in [anonymous], transl., The Manchester Guardian, number 30,757, Manchester: […] John Russell Scott for the Manchester Guardian & Evening News, […], →OCLC, page 5, column 6:

An iron curtain is drawn down upon their [Russia's] front. We do not know what is going on behind.

1945 May 12, Winston Churchill, “No. 6: Leahy Papers: Telegram: Prime Minister Churchill to President [Harry S.] Truman”, in Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers: The Conference of Berlin (The Potsdam Conference) 1945 […] (86th Congress, 1st Session, House Document; no. 161, vol I; Department of State Publication; 7015), volume I, Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, published 1960, →OCLC, paragraph 3, page 9:

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.

1946 March 5, Winston Churchill, “The Sinews of Peace”, in Westminster College Bulletin: World Spotlight Turns on Westminster, series 46, number 1, Fulton, Mo.: Westminster College, published April 1946, →OCLC, column 1:

Indeed, rail traffic of all kinds is developing through the Iron Curtain – for instance, last year a total of 6,445 wagons controlled by Interfrigo, the international company for refrigerated transport, passed between East and West; […]

1960 March, “Talking of Trains: London–Paris in Four Hours”, in Trains Illustrated, London: Ian Allan Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 134:

Justice is giving ground to the forces of evil. These developments have confused the camp of freedom and abetted the growth of Communism. Even so, the fierce struggle for freedom of the people shut behind the Iron Curtain and the support for their emancipation provided by peace-loving people outside the Iron Curtain have never ceased despite the buffeting from waves of appeasement.

1973 July 17 (date delivered), Chiang Kai-shek, “President Chiang Kai-shek’s Message to the Mass Rally Supporting Captive Nations Week”, in L. Y. Chen, editor, Free China Weekly, volume XIV, number 28, Taipei, Taiwan: Chung Hwa Information Service, published 22 July 1973, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 1, columns 1–2:

Now, we are not in a new Cold War. We don't see the descending of a new Iron Curtain, but we have moved back very, very sharply in the wrong direction. We must work with the many Russian democrats still functioning in and out of government, in and out of Parliament, in and out of the business community, to make the dream of a Russian democracy become a reality.

2007 May 17, Tom Lantos, Chairman, Russia: Rebuilding the Iron Curtain: Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred Tenth Congress, First Session […] (Serial No. 110-65), Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, →ISBN, page 3:

[…] Christopher Hill, one of the Western critics whose works were cited and appreciated behind the Iron Curtain throughout the decades of state socialism.

2022, Miklós Péti, “Samson: An Unlikely Hero of Socialism”, in Timothy Mathews, editor, Paradise from behind the Iron Curtain: Reading, Translating and Staging Milton in Communist Hungary (Literature and Translation), London: UCL Press, →DOI, →ISBN, page 68:

(historical) Chiefly preceded by the: the dividing line between Western Europe and the Soviet controlled regions, especially during the Cold War (1947–1991).


scope

scope (countable and uncountable, plural scopes)

→ Irish: scóp

From Italian scopo (“purpose”), from Latin scopus (“target”), from Ancient Greek σκοπός (skopós), from σκέπτομαι (sképtomai), from Proto-Indo-European *speḱ-. Etymologically related to skeptic and spectrum.

Coastie yanked her eye away from the night scope when those big lights were caught by it and amplified in intensity. Her entire view had gone white in an instant. “I can't see!” Temporarily blinded, she let touch become her primary sense, dropped the M40, and grabbed her alternate weapon, an M16 with an ACOG day scope that was already registered for the same distance.

2014, Sgt. Jack Coughlin, Donald A. Davis, On Scope: A Sniper Novel, St. Martin's Press, →ISBN:

(weaponry) A device used in aiming a projectile, through which the person aiming looks at the intended target.


crew-served weapon

crew-served weapon (plural crew-served weapons)

A heavy machine gun, anti-materiel rifle, or rocket launcher might be a crew-served weapon.

(military, notably USMC) Any weapon system that requires a crew or more than one individual to function due to its high operational complexity.


Molotov cocktail

Molotov cocktail (plural Molotov cocktails)

Calque of Finnish Molotovin koktaili. Coined in Finland during the Winter War of 1939–40 between Finland and the Soviet Union, and named after then-Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986), who claimed the bombs the Soviet Union dropped on Finland were "airborne humanitarian food deliveries", prompting Finns to say their firebombs were "Molotov cocktails" (a drink to go with his food deliveries).

A crude incendiary bomb made from a glass bottle, either filled with a flammable liquid such as petroleum and supplied with a rag for a fuse that is lit just before being hurled, or filled with such a mix of flammable liquids that it ignites itself when it is smashed and its contents are exposed to air.


hydrogen bomb

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-hydrogen bomb.wav

A thermonuclear bomb that derives its destructive power from the fusion of isotopes of hydrogen (deuterium and tritium).


sear

en-adj

sear (comparative searer or more sear, superlative searest or most sear)

searer (comparative)
more sear (comparative)
searest (superlative)
most sear (superlative)

From Middle English sere, seer, seere, from Old English sēar, sīere (“dry, sere, sear, withered, barren”), from Proto-West Germanic *sauʀ(ī), from Proto-Germanic *sauzaz (“dry”), from Proto-Indo-European *sh₂ews- (“dry, parched”) (also reconstructed as *h₂sews-).
Cognate with Dutch zoor (“dry, rough”), Low German soor (“dry”), German sohr (“parched, dried up”), dialectal Norwegian søyr (“the desiccation and death of a tree”), Lithuanian saũsas (“dry”), Homeric Ancient Greek αὖος (aûos, “dry”). Doublet of sere and sare.

cog

LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-sear.wav

There are in all but three vvayes of going thither [to the moon]. […] [The] third, Old Empedocles vvay; vvho vvhen he leaped into Ætna, having a drie ſeare bodie, and light, the ſmoake took him and vvhift him up into the Moone, vvhere he lives yet vvaving up and dovvne like a feather, all foot and embers comming out of that cole-pit; our Poet met him, and talkt vvith him.

1620 January 17 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), Benjamin Jonson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “Newes from the New World Discover’d in the Moon. A Masque, […]”, in The Workes of Benjamin Jonson. The Second Volume. […] (Second Folio), London: […] Richard Meighen, published 1640–1641, →OCLC, page 42:

The autumn winds rushing / Waft the leaves that are searest, / But our flower was in flushing, / When blighting was nearest.

1810, Walter Scott, “Canto III. The Gathering.”, in The Lady of the Lake; […], Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for John Ballantyne and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, and William Miller, →OCLC, stanza XVI, page 118:

Dry; withered, especially of vegetation.


thermonuclear

China detonated her first thermonuclear in June 1967.


cyclic

en-adj

cyclic (comparative more cyclic, superlative most cyclic)

more cyclic (comparative)
most cyclic (superlative)

From Ancient Greek κυκλικός (kuklikós). Possibly from cycle + -ic.

On it came, closer and closer, and as it did so it became clear that the pilot, if he was alive, had terminal intentions. Though the torpedo somehow missed, the plane itself did not. To those watching helplessly from other stations, the ship's antiaircraft gunners, in their final moments, were an inspiration: eyes focused through iron sights on the plane as it sped at them, weapons hot, going cyclic, hunched down and never flinching until the Betty struck high on the mainmast, killing them all.

2011, James D. Hornfischer, “26: Suicide”, in Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal, New York: Bantam Books, →ISBN, retrieved 2022-12-17, page 256:

(firearms, of an automatic weapon) Firing at its full cyclic rate.


Borrowed from Russian АК-47 (AK-47), shortened from автома́т Кала́шникова 1947 (avtomát Kalášnikova 1947) (Kalachnikov's automatic rifle), from the name of the designer Mikhail Kalashnikov.

Here we go. AK-47. The very best there is. When you absolutely, positively got to kill every motherfucker in the room, accept no substitutes.

1997, Quentin Tarantino, Jackie Brown, spoken by Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson):

The Soviet-built 1947 Kalashnikov assault rifle or any similar rifle built to this design.

A large South African sandwich; a kind of gatsby.


missile

From Latin missile (“thrown weapon, projectile”), neuter of missilis (“throwable, capable of being thrown”), from mittere (“to send”). From 1611. Compare Middle French missile (“projectile”), from 1636.

bor

That missile is explosive enough to kill hundreds.

(military) A self-propelled projectile whose trajectory can be adjusted after it is launched. [from 20th c.]


fighter-bomber

(military aviation) A military aircraft designed to operate in combined roles of attacking enemy aircraft and bombing targets; usually faster and more maneuverable than a traditional bomber.


assault rifle

Calque of German Sturmgewehr (literally “storm rifle”). The Maschinenpistole 44 was called the Sturmgewehr by Adolf Hitler, whence it was renamed to represent the separate class of firearm it represented.

calque

(colloquial) Any firearm meeting the definition of an assault weapon, and in the form of a rifle.


rocket

From Italian rocchetta, from Old Italian rocchetto (“rocket”, literally “a bobbin”), diminutive of rocca (“a distaff”), from Lombardic rocko (“spinning wheel”), from Proto-West Germanic *rokkō, from Proto-Germanic *rukkô (“a distaff, a staff with flax fibres tied loosely to it, used in spinning thread”). Cognate with Old High German rocco, rocko, roccho, rocho ("a distaff"; > German Rocken (“a distaff”)), Swedish rock (“a distaff”), Icelandic rokkur (“a distaff”), Middle English rocke (“a distaff”). More at rock⁴.
For the meaning development, compare fuselage, ultimately from Latin fūsus (“spindle, spinning wheel”).

gloss

"a distaff"; > German <i class="Latn mention" lang="de">Rocken</i> (“a distaff”)

A cylindrical projectile that can be fired to a great height through combustion, (specifically) a type of firework of this form, typically exploding with light and colour; a skyrocket.

A projectile.
A blunt lance head used in jousting.

A long vehicle or craft propelled by a rocket engine; a missile or rocket-propelled spacecraft.

раке́та

rocket-propelled firework — see also skyrocket

An engine operating similarly to the pyrotechnic, generating thrust by the expulsion of hot gases; a rocket engine.


rocket

Borrowed from French roquette, from Italian ruchetta, diminutive of ruca, from Latin eruca. Cognate to arugula, rucola, eruca, roquette.

Eruca vesicaria
Eruca vesicaria#Translingual

A leaf vegetable of species Eruca sativa or Eruca vesicaria.

Rocket larkspur (Consolida regalis, syn. Delphinium consolida).


fistmele

From fist + mele, variant of meal (“measure”), from Old English mæl.

(archery) A traditional unit of distance equal to the width of a clenched fist with the thumb extended (approx. 6½ inches or 16½ centimetres).


doghead

(firearms) That part of a matchlock or flintlock gun or rifle that holds the burning fuse or flint and applies it to the gunpowder.


hatchet

From Middle English hachet, a borrowing from Old French hachete, diminutive of hache (“axe”), from Vulgar Latin *happia, from Frankish *happjā, from Proto-Germanic *hapjǭ, *habjǭ (“knife”), from Proto-Indo-European *kop- (“to strike, to beat”). Cognate with Old High German happa, heppa, habba (“reaper, sickle”), German Hippe (“billhook”), Dutch heep, hiep (“billhook”), and Ancient Greek κοπίς (kopís). Mostly displaced native Old English handæx, whence Modern English hand axe.

der

to bury the hatchet

hatchet job

“Dat true as missionary! What a soldier do, cap'in, if so much peace? Warrior love a war-path.”
“I wish it were not so, Nick. But my hatchet is buried, I hope, for ever.”

1843, [James Fenimore Cooper], Wyandotté, or The Hutted Knoll. […], volume I, Philadelphia, Pa.: Lea and Blanchard, →OCLC, page 42:

The savagery with which Michael Hofmann can wield a hatchet has earned him unlikely fans outside the literary circuit. A recent issue of Viz ran a cartoon of the critic, poet and translator urinating all over a phone booth, while two donnish FR Leavis types nodded appreciatively from a safe distance.

2016 April 9, Philip Oltermann, “Michael Hofmann: ‘English is basically a trap. It’s almost a language for spies’”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(figurative) Belligerence, animosity; harsh criticism.


nitroglycerine

en-noun

nitroglycerine (usually uncountable, plural nitroglycerines)

(organic chemistry) The compound glyceryl-tri-nitrate or 1,2,3 tri-nitrooxy propane; the ester of glycerol with nitric acid; prepared by the careful addition of a mixture of nitric and sulphuric acids to glycerol with constant stirring and cooling; it is a thick, pale yellow liquid, that is highly explosive on concussion or on exposure to sudden heat; it is used in medicine as a vasodilator, and as an explosive in the form of dynamite which is safe to handle.


hollow point

(firearms) A bullet with a small hole drilled or molded in the tip (nose), designed to expand when it hits its target and therefore cause more damage.


muzzle blast

(firearms) A flash of light, heat and smoke at the muzzle of a firearm, caused by escaping gases when a projectile is released.


muzzle brake

(firearms) A device placed at the muzzle of a firearm to reduce the recoil energy by redirecting the escaping gases.


dum dum

Named after the Dum Dum arsenal in Calcutta, India.

(informal, firearms) A soft point or hollow point bullet, designed to expand when it hits its target and therefore cause more serious damage.


soft point

(firearms) Of a bullet: having an exposed lead point, designed to expand when it hits its target and therefore cause more damage.


soft point

Coordinate term: hollow point


pommel

From Middle English pomel, from Old French pomel and Medieval Latin pomellum, pumellum, presumedly via Vulgar Latin *pomellum (“ball, knob”), the diminutive of Late Latin pōmum (“apple”). Compare French pommeau and Spanish pomo.

The pommels, of which two sets must be provided, fit into these incisions.

1867, Ernest George Ravenstein, The gymnasium and its fittings:

Men use the pommels on the horse for side horse competition, and remove them for long horse vaulting. Women originally used the side horse with the pommels, but later the pommels were removed.

1970, Dennis Keith Stanley, Gymnastics for women:

Jahn is credited with introducing the parallel bars, the horizontal bar, the side horse with pommels, and the vaulting buck.

2003, Dale Mood, Sports and Recreational Activities:

Either of the rounded handles on a pommel horse.

Holonyms: haft, hilt

The pommel is either a cone of metal or a crutch with a whorl ending either arm.

1884, Richard F[rancis] Burton, “The Sword amongst the Barbarians (Early Roman Empire)”, in The Book of the Sword, London: Chatto and Windus, […], →OCLC, page 263:

Pommel bilobed, overlaid with four acanthus leaves, and provided with small button-shaped eminences at tips of lobes and at apex.

1929, Bashford Dean, Catalogue of European Daggers:

There is a possibility that pommel was only decorated on the occasion of his coronation in 1209 but I take as more probably that complete pommel was made at that time and added to the tang of a blade, which is undoubtedly earlier.

2007, Marko Aleksic, Medieval Swords from Southeastern Europe:

The knob on the hilt of an edged weapon such as a sword or dagger.

hruška

The player, armed with a pommel, stands from two to three feet from the spell, places a knur in the cup which is held down by the rack.

1871, Edmund Routledge, Routledge's Every Boy's Annual:

The commonest method of playing the game, by the smaller boys of the village, was with a "sendstick," or pommel, and a wooden spell with a hole in one end to place the knur, which, when struck "tip-cat" like at the other end, threw the knur up to be struck at.

1886, William Smith, Morley: Ancient and Modern:

Next, the spring of the spell, at the end of which is a small brass cup to hold the knur, is adjusted by thumbscrews, so that when released by a touch of the pommel on the trigger, it will toss the knur a distance of six feet forward.

1911, The Encyclopaedia of sport & games, volume 3:

(sports, obsolete) The bat used in the game of knurr and spell or trap ball.


Mauser

Named after the original designers, Wilhelm and Paul Mauser.

The war has begun, confrontations are escalating across the region, and all his men own are old Mausers.

2019, Maaza Mengiste, The Shadow King, Canongate Books (2020), page 101:

Any of the firearms made or designed by the German company Mauser, notably automatic pistols and bolt action rifles.


inner

outer

antonym(s) of “One who supports remaining in the EU”

From Middle English inner, ynner, ynnere, from Old English innera, comparative of inne (“within”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁en.

(military, firearms) The 2nd circle on a target, between the bull (or bull's eye) and magpie.


swivel gun

On this roof a heavy swivel-gun was to be placed to command shipping, while howitzers on each side were to form a flanking defense in connection with the neighboring towers.

1881, Thomas Wilhelm, A Military Dictionary and Gazetteer:

A small cannon attached to a swivel or pivot. It was usually located on a ship's rail so it could have a large range of fire, and could fire anything ranging from small round balls of lead to cannon balls.


dynamite

dynamite (usually uncountable, plural dynamites)

Coined by Alfred Nobel in 1867. Ultimately from Ancient Greek δύναμις (dúnamis, “power”) + -ite, most likely under the influence of dynamo or dynamic.

der

(informal, proscribed) A stick of trinitrotoluene (TNT).


cordite

en-noun

cordite (countable and uncountable, plural cordites)

From cord + -ite, because the material is manufactured into long cordlike cylinders.

A smokeless propellent made by combining two high explosives, nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine, used in some firearm ammunition.

線狀無煙火藥

a smokeless propellent used in some firearm ammunition


hagbut

A few culverins and hagbuts were the unwieldy fire-arms, then borne by the ſoldiers.

1797, John Pinkerton, The History Of Scotland From The Accession Of The House Of Stuart to that of Mary, volume 2, page 407:

[…]Wilkine Johnnstoun of Aschescheillis, William Douglas of Reidhous, Robert Dynwiddie in Kirkmichaell, and Johnne Robsoun there, almost continually since April 1610 have worn hagbuts and pistolets and used them for their revenge on persons against whom they have quarrel.

1889, Register, volume 9, Scotland: H. M. General Register House, page 301:

[…]they resisted and shot forth of the said house twenty shot of hagbuts and pistolets, and slew one of the Guard named Bailye, and would neither render themselves nor come forth of the house till fire was raised about it.

1897, George Francis Scott Elliot, The Border Elliots and the Family of Minto, page 187:

(obsolete) An arquebus, a firearm with a long barrel.


smokeless

I run home, jumped in the bed,
Laid a forty-four smokeless under my head.

1971, Thomas G. Burton, Ambrose N. Manning, editors, Folksongs II, Research Advisory Council of East Tennessee State University, page 19:

(firearms) (Of a gun) that does not produce smoke when fired.


recoil

recoil (countable and uncountable, plural recoils)

(firearms) The energy transmitted back to the shooter from a firearm which has fired. Recoil is a function of the weight of the weapon, the weight of the projectile, and the speed at which it leaves the muzzle.


recoil

en-verb

recoil (third-person singular simple present recoils, present participle recoiling, simple past and past participle recoiled)

recoils (present singular third-person)
recoiling (participle present)
recoiled (participle past)
recoiled (past)

(weaponry) Of a firearm: to quickly push back when fired.


ramrod

(firearms) Device used with muzzleloaders to push the projectile up against the propellant.


revolver

→ Catalan: revòlver

→ Chuvash: ляворвăр (ljavorvăr)

→ Crimean Tatar: revolver

→ Danish: revolver

→ Dutch: revolver

→ Esperanto: revolvero

→ Finnish: revolveri

→ French: revolver

→ Gagauz: livorver

→ Galician: revólver

→ German: Revolver

→ Hungarian: revolver

→ Italian: revolver

→ Japanese: リボルバー (riborubā)

Norwegian:

→ Norwegian Bokmål: revolver

→ Norwegian Nynorsk: revolver

→ Polish: rewolwer

→ Portuguese: revólver

→ Russian: револьвер (revolʹver)

Serbo-Croatian:

→ Cyrillic script: револвер

→ Latin script: revolver

→ Spanish: revólver

→ Swedish: revolver

→ Urum: levorver

→ Yiddish: רעוואָלווער (revolver)

From revolve + -er, coined by American inventor Samuel Colt in 1835.

coin

(firearms) A handgun with a revolving chamber enabling several shots to be fired without reloading.

(by extension) Any (personal) firearm with such a mechanism.


warhead

"Multi Bottle Rocket". Possibly the strongest weapon around, it does a lot of damage due to its massive warhead.

1995, HAL Laboratory, EarthBound, Nintendo, Super Nintendo Entertainment System:

The part of a missile, projectile, torpedo, rocket, or other munition which contains either the nuclear or thermonuclear system, high explosive system, chemical or biological agents, or inert materials intended to inflict damage.


keyhole

en-verb

keyhole (third-person singular simple present keyholes, present participle keyholing, simple past and past participle keyholed)

keyholes (present singular third-person)
keyholing (participle present)
keyholed (participle past)
keyholed (past)

(firearms) To strike a target after wobbling in flight so that the long axis of the bullet does not follow the line of flight, typically due to insufficient spin resulting from the rifling in the barrel.


dragoon

Battle of Cerro Gordo
Battle of Jena–Auerstedt
Mexican–American War
Smithsonian Institution
Édouard Detaille

The noun is borrowed from French dragon (“dragon (mythological creature); type of cavalry soldier, dragoon”) (originally referring to a soldier armed with the firearm of the same name (sense 1.1)), ultimately from Latin dracō (“dragon; kind of serpent or snake”), from Ancient Greek δρᾰ́κων (drákōn, “dragon; serpent”), possibly from δέρκομαι (dérkomai, “to see, see clearly (in the sense of something staring)”), from Proto-Indo-European *derḱ- (“to see”)). Doublet of Draco, dracone, and dragon.
The verb is either derived:
* from the noun; or
* from French dragonner (“to force (someone) into doing something, coerce; to torment (oneself)”), from dragon (noun) (see above) + -er (suffix forming infinitives of first-conjugation verbs).

ref

From the collection of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., United States.

From the collection of the Musée de l'Armée (Army Museum) in Paris, France.

der

[A] Lieutenant of a Troupe of compleat armed French Piſtoliers, is reputed better in degree then a Captaine of an hundred Foot, a Lieutenant of the late inuented Dragoones (being not aboue ſixteene inche Barrell, and full Muſquet bore) the Foot-Captaines equall, and the Lieutenant of a Troupe of Harquebuſsiers or Carbines his immediate younger brother.

1622, Francis Markham, “Epist[le] 5. To the Right Honorable William Lord Peter of Writtle. The Argument. Of the Captaine of Horse.”, in Five Decades of Epistles of Warre, London: […] Augustine Matthewes, →OCLC, decad 4, pages 137–138:

(weaponry, historical) Synonym of dragon (“a type of musket with a short, large-calibre barrel and a flared muzzle, metaphorically exhaling fire like a mythical dragon”)


scram

Probably either:
* a clipping of scramble by apocope; or
* from dialectal German schramm, the imperative singular form of schrammen (“to scratch, scrape”), from Late Middle High German schramm, schramme (“a graze, scratch”); further etymology unknown.

My manager says I'm stupid for still rollin' with a scram
I hate explainin' myself and I don't think he'll understand

2023 June 18, “100mph Freestyle x3”, Clavish (lyrics), 1:12:


windscreen

Oh no! A vandal has just smashed our windscreen! Susan, can you go and call the insurance company?

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth) A transparent screen made of glass, located at the front of a vehicle in order to protect its occupants from the wind and weather.


spadroon

Compare French and Spanish espadon, Italian spadone. See espadon, spade.

A long heavy sword for both hands; a spadone.


dudgeon

From Middle English dogeon, apparently from Anglo-Norman or Middle French, but the ultimate origin is obscure. Compare French douve (“stave”).

And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood

c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:


windshield

The freezing rain covered our windshield with ice and we couldn't see a thing.

(Canada, US, Philippines) A transparent screen made of glass, located at the front and back of a vehicle in front of its occupants to protect them from the wind force generated by the vehicle's speed and inclement weather.

bitaʼ

screen located in front of a vehicle to protect from wind and weather


flip

en-noun

flip (countable and uncountable, plural flips)

Alteration of earlier fillip, from Middle English filippen (“to make a signal or sound with thumb and right forefinger, snap the fingers”), an attenuated variation of flappen (“to flap, clap, slap, strike”). Cognate with Dutch flappen (“to flap”), German flappen (“to flap”).

inh

In the case of rifles flip is counteracted by the sighting of the weapons, and it is because of flip that the sights cannot be set so that the line of sight is exactly parallel to the axis of the bore.

1961, Sir Gerald Burrard, The gun. The cartridge, page 224:

A small, lightweight round, such as a .22 LR, generates very manageable recoil and muzzle flip (how much the nose of the gun flips up when you fire it).

2015, Tara Dixon Engel, The Handgun Guide for Women, page 33:

(firearms, uncountable) The tendency of a gun's barrel to jerk about at the moment of firing.


pill

* From Middle English pille (also pillem), a borrowing from Middle Low German pille or Middle Dutch pille (whence Dutch pil), probably from Latin pila, pilula.
* (persuade or convince): Generalized from red pill.

(firearms, slang) A bullet (projectile).


ground zero

en-noun

ground zero (countable and uncountable, plural ground zeroes)

/ˌɡɹaʊnd ˈzɪəɹəʊ/

/ˌɡɹaʊnd ˈzɪɚ(ˌ)oʊ/

From ground + zero, first attested in a June 1946 a report by the United States Strategic Bombing Survey on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, on August 6 and 9, 1945, during World War II. “Zero” was used as the code name for the location of the Trinity atomic bomb test – the first detonation of a nuclear weapon – in New Mexico, USA, on July 16, 1945.

James Meredith's forced admission was a milestone in upending the old order in America's most segregated state, a kind of race relations ground zero.

1997 May 4, Adam Nossiter, “Ground Zero”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

Less than two years into the job, she has transformed Washington into ground zero of America’s education reform movement.

2009 March 21, Nicholas Kristof, “Education’s Ground Zero”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

(figuratively) The point at which something begins.


matchlock

The gunlock used in such a weapon, having a slow smouldering match.


blowback

blowback (countable and uncountable, plural blowbacks)

The Israeli UZI submachine gun, one the most easily recognized examples of a blowback firearm, is well known for its simplicity, ease of manufacture, low maintenance, and utter reliability.

2012, Robert E. Walker, Cartridges and Firearm Identification, CRC Press, →ISBN, page 24:

(firearms) A type of action where the pressure from the fired cartridge blows a sliding mechanism backward to extract the fired cartridge, chamber another cartridge, and cock the hammer.


flintlock

A type of lock used on muskets, rifles, and pistols from the early 17th to the mid-19th century.


limbo

limbo (countable and uncountable, plural limbos or limboes)

The noun is derived from Middle English limbo, lymbo (“place where innocent souls exist temporarily until they can enter heaven”), from Latin limbō, the ablative singular of limbus (“border, edge; hem; fringe, tassel”) (notably in expressions like in limbō (“in limbo”) and e limbō (“out of limbo”)); further etymology uncertain, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *lemb- (“to hang limply or loosely”), from Proto-Indo-European *leb- (“to hang down loosely (?)”). Doublet of limp.
The verb is derived from the noun.

der

(countable, military, nautical, weaponry) A type of antisubmarine mortar installed on naval vessels.


kalis

Borrowed from Tagalog kalis. Doublet of kris.


API

(weaponry) Initialism of advanced primer ignition.

armor-piercing incendiary
armor-piercing incendiary#English

(weaponry) Initialism of armor-piercing incendiary.


air rifle

A rifle that propels a pellet or other projectile by using compressed gas, rather than an explosion of gunpowder or other means.


ICBM

Just sing out a Te Deum / When you see that ICBM / And the party will be come-as-you-are

1959, “We Will All Go Together When We Go”, in Tom Lehrer (music), An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer, performed by Tom Lehrer:

Iraq could test a North Korean-type ICBM that could deliver a several-hundred-kilogram payload to the United States in the last half of the next decade [the decade beginning with calendar year 2000] depending on the level of foreign assistance.

2002, Alexander T. Lennon, Contemporary Nuclear Debates: Missile Defense, Arms Control, and Arms Races in the Twenty-first Century, MIT Press, →ISBN:

(weaponry) Initialism of intercontinental ballistic missile.

МКБР

abbreviation of intercontinental ballistic missile


kickback

en-noun

kickback (countable and uncountable, plural kickbacks)

(uncountable, firearms, machinery) Recoil; a sudden backward motion, usually in the direction of the operator.


assault weapon

(US) A rocket launcher designed to attack fortified structures, such as a Mk 153 Shoulder-Launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon (aka SMAW).


IED

IED (countable and uncountable, plural IEDs)

(electronics) Initialism of Intelligent Electronic Device (a sensor, actuator, or PLC used as part of a SCADA system)

Intelligent Electronic Device

(languages) Initialism of Interlingua-English Dictionary (the first dictionary of Interlingua)

Hippocampal sclerosis was less common in the patients with IED.

2003, Randolph B. Schiffer et al., Neuropsychiatry, 2nd edition, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, →ISBN, page 1109:

Initial concerns revolved mainly around the relationship between the interictal epileptiform discharge (IED) and the clinical diagnosis of epilepsy.

2007, Jerome Engel et al., Epilepsy: A Comprehensive Textbook, 2nd edition, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, →ISBN, page 809:

(medicine) Initialism of interictal epileptiform discharge (a type of brain waves related to epilepsy)

interictal epileptiform discharge

She'd been an Army noncombatant, but roadside IEDs didn't distinguish between armed troops and support services.

2017, Dean Koontz, The Silent Corner, page 61:

improvised explosive device
improvised explosive device#English

(weaponry) Initialism of improvised explosive device.

СВП

initialism of improvised explosive device — see also improvised explosive device

intermittent explosive disorder
intermittent explosive disorder#English

(medicine) Initialism of intermittent explosive disorder.


deterrence

deterrence (countable and uncountable, plural deterrences)

The art of producing in one's enemy the fear of attacking.

(specifically) nuclear deterrence: discouraging nuclear attack through the threat of nuclear retaliation.


nuclear-free zone

nuclear-free zone (plural nuclear-free zones)

An area in which the local or regional authorities have banned nuclear weapons and nuclear power stations.

無核區

area in which authorities have banned nuclear weapons and power stations


pike

From Middle English pyke, pyk, pik, pike (“pike; sharp point, iron tip of a staff or spear, pointed toe of an item of footwear; sharp tool; mountain, peak”), from Old English pīc (“pointed object, pick axe”), and Middle French pique (“long thrusting weapon”), from Old French pic (“sharp point, spike”); both ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *pīk, from Proto-Germanic *pīkaz, *pīkō (“sharp point, pike, peak”), related to pick with a narrower meaning.
The word is cognate with Middle Dutch pecke, peke, picke (modern Dutch piek), German Pike, Norwegian pik, Danish pig, and possibly Old Irish pīk. It is a doublet of pique.
The diving or gymnastics position is probably from tapered appearance of the body when the position is executed.
The carnivorous freshwater fish is probably derived from the “sharp point, spike” senses, due to the fish’s pointed jaws.
The verb sense “to quit or back out of a promise” may be from the sense of taking up pilgrim's staff or pike and leaving on a pilgrimage; and compare Middle English pī̆ken (“to go, remove oneself”) and Old Danish pikke af (“to go away”).

cog

Each had a ſmall ax in the ſurcingle of his ſaddle, and a pike about fourteen feet long, the weapon with which he charged; […]

1790, James Bruce, chapter V, in Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, in the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773. In Five Volumes, volume IV, Edinburgh: Printed by J. Ruthven, for G. G. J. and J. Robinson, […], →OCLC, page 117:

A few months after the murder of Don Carlos, the Counts de Horn and d'Egmonte, who had long been detained in prison, notwithstanding their innocence, were put to death by the cruel Alva in the market-place at Brussels, and the heads of these two patriotic martyrs were exposed upon pikes to the view of the populace.

1855, Jules Raymond Lamé Fleury, “The Death of Don Carlos. From the Year 1567 to 1570.”, in M. C. T., transl., Historical Chapters Relating to Many Lands. Adapted for Children. Translated from the French of M. Lamé Fleury, by a Lady, London: Jackson & Walford, […], →OCLC, page 110:


cat's-paw

en-noun

cat's-paw (plural cat's-paws or cats'-paws)

From cat + paw. In most senses, due to a resemblance of shape. In its senses as a pawn to another's interests or analysis, variant of earlier cat's-foot, derived from European tales of a monkey (attested as early as 1456 but sometimes misattributed to the 16th-century monkey of Pope Julius II) who used a sleeping puppy or cat's foot to rake hot chestnuts out of a fire, taken as a metaphor for rulers' ill use of their subjects. Now usually understood in light of Jean de La Fontaine's 1679 fable of the "The Monkey and the Cat" (sometimes misattributed to Aesop), in which the monkey fools the cat into removing the chestnuts through flattery and promises of shared reward. The cat removes the chestnuts one by one, burning his paw while the monkey eats each in turn. A maid then enters and chases them both away. La Fontaine's moral concludes that princes should not endure real losses for mere flattery from their king.

an unrelated metaphor from a separate story

pull someone's chestnuts out of the fire

(historical weaponry, torture) A metal set of claws worn over the hand or wielded in the hand used to remove skin and flesh.


brickbat

The noun is derived from brick + bat (“a bit, piece; specifically, part of a brick with one whole end”). The verb is derived from the noun.

brickbats

small rocky particles moving as a group in space

[S]he sēt [sent] a brick back after him & hit him on þᵉ back, […]

[1563 March 30 (Gregorian calendar), John Foxe, “George Tākerfield [Tankerfield] a Faythful Martyr and Witnes of the Gospel, Constantly Suffering for the Testimonie of the Same”, in Actes and Monuments of These Latter and Perillous Dayes, […], London: […] Iohn Day, […], →OCLC, book V, page 1251 [1320]:

[Y]ᵉ body of King Charles the First was privately putt into the Sand about White-hall; and the coffin that was carried to Windsor and layd in K. Hen[ry] 8^(th's) vault was filled with rubbish, or brick-batts.

1687 February, John Aubrey, “Lotts”, in James Britten, editor, Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, London: [F]or The Folk-lore Society by W. Satchell, Peyton, and Co., […], published 1881, →OCLC, page 91:

Fragments of glass kept company with the dust on the floor, together with a choice collection of stones, brickbats, and other missiles,—which not improbably were the cause of their being there.

1897 March 13 – June 19, Richard Marsh [pseudonym; Richard Bernard Heldmann], “What was Hidden under the Floor”, in The Beetle (The Adelphi Library; 4), London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, […], published 1920, →OCLC, book IV (In Pursuit), page 275:

No doubt he, like me, had been buoying himself up for years with the thought that we should never meet again and that, whatever brickbats life might have in store for him, he had at least got Bertram out of his system. A nasty jar it must have been for the poor bloke having me suddenly pop up from a trap like this.

1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter 3, in Jeeves in the Offing, Harmondsworth, Middlesex [London]: Penguin Books, published 1963 (1975 printing), →OCLC, page 33:

A piece of brick, rock, etc., especially when used as a weapon (for example, thrown or placed in a sock or other receptacle and used as a club).

murikka

I beſeech ye friends, ere the brickbats flye, reſolve me and your ſelves, is it blasphemy, or any vvhit diſagreeing from Chriſtian meekneſſe, […] for me to anſvver a ſlovenly vvincer of a confutation, that, if he vvould needs put his foot to ſuch a ſvveaty ſervice, the odour of his Sock vvas like to be neither Musk, nor Benjamin?

1642 April, John Milton, An Apology for Smectymnuus; republished in A Complete Collection of the Historical, Political, and Miscellaneous Works of John Milton, […], volume I, Amsterdam [actually London: s.n.], 1698, →OCLC, page 179:

Not honoured, hardly even envied; only fools and the flunkey-species so much as envy me. I am conspicuous,—as a mark for curses and brickbats. What good is it?

1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “The Didactic”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book IV (Horoscope), pages 292–293:

And Mr [Manmohan] Singh has little control over this mutinous mix; his party boss, Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of a murdered Congress leader, runs the show. This arrangement has assured Mr Singh many brickbats, and little freedom to dodge.

2008 June 26, “Manmohan Singh’s burning ambition”, in The Economist, London: The Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-07-25:

A broken bone heals far more quickly and durably than the emotional and psychic injuries inflicted by a savage word, which is where the brickbat derives its power. The many libel and defamation suits that litter the courts show that the figurative brickbat hurts just as much as, if not more than, the literal one.

2020 February 7, Shashi Tharoor, “Shashi Tharoor’s Word of the Week: Brickbat”, in Hindustan Times, New Delhi: HT Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-05-21:

(figurative) A piece of (sharp) criticism or a (highly) uncomplimentary remark.


brickbat

en-verb

brickbat (third-person singular simple present brickbats, present participle brickbatting, simple past and past participle brickbatted)

brickbats (present singular third-person)
brickbatting (participle present)
brickbatted (participle past)
brickbatted (past)

We had two boys arrested, both colored, for brick-batting a colored woman in her house. They were sent to the chaingang for 12 months each.

1904, “Crime in Georgia”, in W[illiam] E[dward] Burghardt Du Bois, editor, Some Notes on Negro Crime, Particularly in Georgia […] (The Atlanta University Publications; 9), Atlanta, Ga.: Atlanta University Press, →OCLC, page 38:

To attack (someone or something) by swinging or throwing brickbats (noun sense 1).

heittää kiviä

to attack (someone or something) by swinging or throwing brickbats


forty-four

The cardinal number immediately following forty-three and preceding forty-five.


forty-four

I went back home and I went to bed;
With a forty-four revolver under my head.

1936 July 14, The Journal of American Folklore, volume 40, number 193, page 221:

(firearms) (Of a gun) firing a 0.44 inch calibre bullet.


receiver

From Anglo-Norman receverre, receivour et al., later also reformed as receive + -er. Compare recevor, rescaivour.

curator

person appointed to settle financial affairs

прыёмнік

electronic device that receives and converts signal

(firearms) The part of a firearm containing the action.


flail

From Middle English flayle, from earlier fleil, fleyl, fleȝȝl, from Old English fligel, *flegel (“flail”), from Proto-West Germanic *flagil, of uncertain origin. Cognate with Scots flail (“a thresher's flail”), West Frisian fleil, flaaiel (“flail”), Dutch vlegel (“flail”), German Flegel (“flail”). Possibly a native Germanic word from Proto-Germanic *flagilaz (“whip”), from Proto-Germanic *flag-, *flah- (“to whip, beat”), from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂k- (“to beat, hit, strike; weep”); compare Old Norse flaga (“sudden attack, bout”), Lithuanian plàkti (“to whip, lash, flog”), Ancient Greek πληγνύναι (plēgnúnai, “strike, hit, encounter”), Latin plangō (“lament”, i.e. “beat one's breast”) + Proto-Germanic *-ilaz (instrumental suffix). If so, related also to English flag, flack, flacker.
Alternatively, Proto-West Germanic *flagil may be an early borrowing of Latin flagellum (“winnowing tool, thresher”), diminutive of flagrum (“scourge, whip”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰlag-, *bʰlaǵ- (“to beat”); compare Old Norse blekkja (“to beat, mistreat”). Compare also Old French flael (“flail”), Walloon flayea (“flail”) (locally pronounced "flai"), Italian flagello (“scourge, whip, plague”).

cog

When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
That ten day-labourers could not end;

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail

1816, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan:

On him alone the curse of Cain
Fell, like a flail on the garnered grain,
And struck him to the earth!

1842, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Slave in the Dismal Swamp:

If the farmer must use the spade because he has not capital enough for a plough, the sickle instead of the reaping machine, the flail instead of the thresher...

1879, Henry George, chapter V, in Progress and Poverty:

A tool used for threshing, consisting of a long handle (handstock) with a shorter stick (swipple or swingle) attached with a short piece of chain, thong or similar material.


leister

From earlier leyster, lister, perhaps via Middle English *lēster, *līster, from Old Norse ljóstr (“leister”), from ljósta (“to smite, strike; to hit, strike (with an arrow or spear)”), from Proto-Germanic *leustaną (“to hit, strike”), from Proto-Indo-European *lew-s- (“to loosen (by knocking)”); the word is cognate with Danish lyster (“fish spear, gig, leister”), Icelandic ljósta (“to hit, strike”), Norwegian Bokmål lyster (dialectal Norwegian lioster), Swedish ljuster.

refn

From the collection of the Immigration Museum of the State of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.

cog

The methods of catching the ſalmon in this pariſh are ſimilar to thoſe deſcribed in the ſtatiſtical account of Dornock, p. 15. excepting that there is no raiſe-net fiſhing, and that the leiſter is only about 10 or 12 feet long, conſequently better calculated for throwing to any diſtance.

1792, William Wright, “Number XII. Parish of Newabbey. (Stewartry of Kirkcudbright.)”, in John Sinclair, The Statistical Account of Scotland. […], volume II, Edinburgh: Printed and sold by William Creech; [et al.], →OCLC, footnote, pages 132–133:

Rob Runchy, as a forlorn hope, once threw his clodding leister at a drowning man floating down the Yarrow in a high flood, and hauled him out with the lyams unharmed.

1843, William Scrope, chapter IX, in Days and Nights of Salmon Fishing in the Tweed; […], London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, pages 199–200:

Andy, who had been a moment behind getting his leister out of the fish he had killed, came up, and both he and Jock made several random strokes, when Jock, in his eagerness, slipped his foot, and fell headforemost into the water, the leister flying from his hand just as I caught sight of the fish they were after, lying close in to the bank; […]

1850, “Agricola” [pseudonym], “‘Burning the Water’—A Tweedside Sketch”, in The New Sporting Magazine, volume 116, London: Published at the office, 34, Norfolk Street, Strand, →OCLC, page 57:

Old Sandy fished down the river, but he could kill no more salmon that night, […] He missed one; wounded another on the tail; and struck a third on the rigback, where no leister can pierce a fish, till he made him spring above water.

1865, “the Ettrick Shepherd” [pseudonym; James Hogg], Thomas Thomson, “The Siege of Roxburgh”, in The Works of the Ettrick Shepherd. […], new edition, volume I, London, Glasgow, Edinburgh: Blackie & Son, […], →OCLC, chapter VII, page 632, column 1:

The leister is a spear composed of four or more barbed prongs, something like the manure fork or graip of the agriculturist, and firmly fixed to a light straight pole about twelve or fourteen feet in length. […] The leisterer looks into the river to find a fish, he spears it if he can and must keep it from wriggling off his leister after it is pierced.

1878 April 26, “a special correspondent” [pseudonym], “River Poaching on the Borders.—No. IV.”, in The Fishing Gazette, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, →OCLC, page 194, column 1:

Although leisters and harpoons cannot be called the most important implement in the fishing economy of the North American Indians, they are probably of more value as evidence of culture-historical movements than most of the other fishing artifacts, and for two reasons.

1952, University of California Publications in Geography, volume 9, Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 108:

The shaft parts taper slightly upwards, have rounded outer surfaces and flat or slightly concave inner surfaces which are adapted to the shape of the leister pole.

2004, Jørgen Skaarup, “Artefacts”, in Jørgen Skaarup, Ole Grøn, translated by Anne Bloch Jøorgensen and David Earle Robinson, Møllegabet II: A Submerged Mesolithic Settlement in Southern Denmark (BAR International Series; 1328), Oxford: Archaeopress, →ISBN, archived from the original on 2018-12-20, section V.a.4.2 (Leister Prongs), page 88, column 2:

These Aborigines possessed the entire Tasmanian toolkit plus hundreds of additional specialized tools, including a fine array of bone tools, leisters, spear throwers, boomerangs, mounted adzes (for wood working), many multipart tools, a variety of nets for birds, fish, and wallabies, sewn-bark canoes with paddles, string bags, ground-edge axes, and wooden bowls for drinking.

2016, Joseph Henrich, chapter 12, in The Secret of Our Success […] , Princeton: Princeton University Press, →ISBN:

(fishing) A spear armed with three or more barbed prongs for catching fish, particularly salmon.

lyster

spear with barbed prongs for catching fish