cannon
See also: Cannon
English
Etymology
Borrowed around 1400 from Old French canon, from Italian cannone, from Latin canna, from Ancient Greek κάννα (kánna, “reed”), from Akkadian 𒄀 (qanû, “reed”), from Sumerian 𒄀𒈾 (gi.na).
This spelling was not fixed until about 1800.[1][2]
Pronunciation
Noun
cannon (plural cannon or cannons)
- A complete assembly, consisting of an artillery tube and a breech mechanism, firing mechanism or base cap, which is a component of a gun, howitzer or mortar. It may include muzzle appendages.[3]
- Any similar device for shooting material out of a tube.
- water cannon
- glitter cannon
- A bone of a horse's leg, between the fetlock joint and the knee or hock.
- A cannon bit.
- (historical) A large muzzle-loading artillery piece.
- (sports, billiards, snooker, pool) A carom.
- In English billiards, a cannon is when one's cue ball strikes the other player's cue ball and the red ball on the same shot; and it is worth two points.
- (baseball, figuratively, informal) The arm of a player that can throw well.
- He's got a cannon out in right.
- (engineering) A hollow cylindrical piece carried by a revolving shaft, on which it may, however, revolve independently.
- (printing) Alternative form of canon (a large size of type)
- (xiangqi) A piece which moves horizontally and vertically like a rook but captures another piece by jumping over a different piece in the line of attack.
Usage notes
The unchanged plural is preferred in Great Britain, Ireland and all English-speaking Commonwealth countries, while North Americans tend to use the regular plural cannons.
On aircraft, autocannons are sometimes called "cannons" for short.
Related terms
Translations
artillery piece
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bone of horse's leg — see cannon bone
large muzzle-loading artillery piece
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billiard shot
baseball: good throwing hand
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
Verb
cannon (third-person singular simple present cannons, present participle cannoning, simple past and past participle cannoned)
- To bombard with cannons.
- (sports, billiards, snooker, pool) To play the carom billiard shot. To strike two balls with the cue ball
- The white cannoned off the red onto the pink.
- To fire something, especially spherical, rapidly.
- 2011 September 2, “Wales 2-1 Montenegro”, in BBC[1]:
- 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.
- To collide or strike violently, especially so as to glance off or rebound.
- 1898, Rudyard Kipling, "The Maltese Cat" in The Day's Work, [2]
- […] he heard the right-hand goal post crack as a pony cannoned into it&mdashcrack, splinter, and fall like a mast.
- 1952, C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Collins, 1998, Chapter 11,
- She ran down the stairs which she had come up so nervously that morning and cannoned into Edmund at the bottom.
- 1898, Rudyard Kipling, "The Maltese Cat" in The Day's Work, [2]
Translations
to bombard with cannons
billiards: to play carom shot
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to fire something rapidly
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References
- ^ Barnhart, Robert K.; Editor. The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology. 1995 HarperResource/HarperCollins P.102.
- ^ Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (December 26, 2006).
- ^ (JP 1-02 Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms).
Further reading
Categories:
- English terms borrowed from Old French
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Italian
- English terms derived from Latin
- Latin terms borrowed from Ancient Greek
- Latin terms derived from Ancient Greek
- Latin terms derived from Akkadian
- Latin terms derived from Sumerian
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/ænən
- English terms with homophones
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English indeclinable nouns
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- English terms with historical senses
- en:Sports
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- English informal terms
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- English verbs
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- en:Artillery