cannon

Wikipedia

See also canon

English

A cannon (artillery piece)

Etymology

Origin circa 1400 A.D. from Old French canon, from Italian cannone, from Latin canna.

This spelling was not fixed until circa 1800.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ænən
• Homophone: canon

Noun

cannon (plural cannon or cannons)

1. A complete assembly, consisting of an artillery tube and a breech mechanism, firing mechanism or base cap, which is a component of a gun, howitzer or mortar. It may include muzzle appendages.
2. A large-bore machine gun.
3. A bone of a horse's leg, between the fetlock joint and the knee or hock.
4. (historical) A large muzzle-loading artillery piece.
5. (sports, billiards, snooker, pool) A carom.

   In English billiards, a cannon is when one's cue ball strikes the other player's cue ball and the red ball on the same shot; and it is worth two points.

6. (baseball, figuratively, informal) The arm of a player that can throw well.

   He's got a cannon out in right.

Related terms

• cannonade
• cannoneer

Translations

artillery piece

• Bulgarian: топ (bg) (top), оръдие (bg) (orǎdie) n
• Catalan: canó (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 炮 (cmn) (pào)

• Czech: dělo (cs) n
• Dutch: kanon (nl) n
• Esperanto: kanono (eo), pafilego (eo)
• Finnish: tykki (fi)
• French: canon (fr) m
• Georgian: ქვემეხი (ka) (k'vemexi)
• Greek: κανόνι (el) (kanóni)
• Hindi: तोप (hi) (top) f
• Hungarian: ágyú (hu), löveg (hu)
• Icelandic: fallbyssa (is) f
• Italian: cannone (it) m
• Jèrriais: canon m
• Korean: 캐넌 (ko) (kaeneon)
• Kurdish: top (ku) f, moşek (ku) f, sarox (ku) f

  Sorani: لوله‌تۆپ

• Luxembourgish: Kanoun (lb) f
• Macedonian: топ (mk) (top) m
• Malay: meriam (ms)
• Malayalam: പീരങ്കി (ml)
• Maori: pū repo (mi)
• Marathi: तोफ (mr) (toph)
• Portuguese: canhão (pt) m
• Russian: пушка (ru) (púška) f
• Sanskrit: नळिकम् (sa) (naLikaH)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: то̏п (sh) m

  Roman: tȍp (sh) m

• Spanish: cañón (es) m
• Swahili: mzinga (sw)
• Swedish: kanon (sv) c
• Turkish: top (tr), savaş topu (tr)

large-bore machine gun

• Finnish: konetykki (fi)

bone of horse's leg — see cannon bone

large muzzle-loading artillery piece

• Finnish: kanuuna (fi)

billiard shot

• Bulgarian: карамбол (bg) (karambol)
• Italian: carambola (it) f

• Macedonian: карамбол (mk) (kárambol) m
• Russian: карамбо́ль (ru) (karamból') m

baseball: good throwing hand

• Finnish: kanuuna (fi), heittokäsi (fi)

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.

Translations to be checked

• German: (1,2) Kanone (de) f

• Hebrew: תותח (he) (totakh) m (1,2,3)

Verb

cannon (third-person singular simple present cannons, present participle cannoning, simple past and past participle cannoned)

1. To bombard with cannons
2. (sports, billiards, snooker, pool) To play the carom billiard shot. To strike two balls with the cue ball

   The white cannoned off the red onto the pink.

3. To fire something, especially spherical, rapidly.
   • 2011 September 2, “Wales 2-1 Montenegro”, BBC:

     Montenegro had hardly threatened in the second period but served notice they were still potent as Nikola Vukcevic took a smart pass from Jovetic and cannoned a shot off Hennessey's shins.

Translations

to bombard with cannons

• Finnish: tykittää (fi), ampua (fi) tykillä (fi), tulittaa (fi)

• Hungarian: ágyúz (hu)

billiards: to play carom shot

• Manx: aavenn (gv)

to fire something rapidly

• Finnish: tykittää (fi)