Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Gun barrel   /gən bˈærəl/   Listen
noun
Gun  n.  
1.
A weapon which throws or propels a missile to a distance; any firearm or instrument for throwing projectiles, consisting of a tube or barrel closed at one end, in which the projectile is placed, with an explosive charge (such as guncotton or gunpowder) behind, which is ignited by various means. Pistols, rifles, carbines, muskets, and fowling pieces are smaller guns, for hand use, and are called small arms. Larger guns are called cannon, ordnance, fieldpieces, carronades, howitzers, etc. See these terms in the Vocabulary. "As swift as a pellet out of a gunne When fire is in the powder runne." "The word gun was in use in England for an engine to cast a thing from a man long before there was any gunpowder found out."
2.
(Mil.) A piece of heavy ordnance; in a restricted sense, a cannon.
3.
pl. (Naut.) Violent blasts of wind. Note: Guns are classified, according to their construction or manner of loading as rifled or smoothbore, breech-loading or muzzle-loading, cast or built-up guns; or according to their use, as field, mountain, prairie, seacoast, and siege guns.
Armstrong gun, a wrought iron breech-loading cannon named after its English inventor, Sir William Armstrong.
Big gun or Great gun, a piece of heavy ordnance; hence (Fig.), a person superior in any way; as, bring in the big guns to tackle the problem.
Gun barrel, the barrel or tube of a gun.
Gun carriage, the carriage on which a gun is mounted or moved.
Gun cotton (Chem.), a general name for a series of explosive nitric ethers of cellulose, obtained by steeping cotton in nitric and sulphuric acids. Although there are formed substances containing nitric acid radicals, yet the results exactly resemble ordinary cotton in appearance. It burns without ash, with explosion if confined, but quietly and harmlessly if free and open, and in small quantity. Specifically, the lower nitrates of cellulose which are insoluble in ether and alcohol in distinction from the highest (pyroxylin) which is soluble. See Pyroxylin, and cf. Xyloidin. The gun cottons are used for blasting and somewhat in gunnery: for making celluloid when compounded with camphor; and the soluble variety (pyroxylin) for making collodion. See Celluloid, and Collodion. Gun cotton is frequenty but improperly called nitrocellulose. It is not a nitro compound, but an ester of nitric acid.
Gun deck. See under Deck.
Gun fire, the time at which the morning or the evening gun is fired.
Gun metal, a bronze, ordinarily composed of nine parts of copper and one of tin, used for cannon, etc. The name is also given to certain strong mixtures of cast iron.
Gun port (Naut.), an opening in a ship through which a cannon's muzzle is run out for firing.
Gun tackle (Naut.), the blocks and pulleys affixed to the side of a ship, by which a gun carriage is run to and from the gun port.
Gun tackle purchase (Naut.), a tackle composed of two single blocks and a fall.
Krupp gun, a wrought steel breech-loading cannon, named after its German inventor, Herr Krupp.
Machine gun, a breech-loading gun or a group of such guns, mounted on a carriage or other holder, and having a reservoir containing cartridges which are loaded into the gun or guns and fired in rapid succession. In earlier models, such as the Gatling gun, the cartridges were loaded by machinery operated by turning a crank. In modern versions the loading of cartidges is accomplished by levers operated by the recoil of the explosion driving the bullet, or by the pressure of gas within the barrel. Several hundred shots can be fired in a minute by such weapons, with accurate aim. The Gatling gun, Gardner gun, Hotchkiss gun, and Nordenfelt gun, named for their inventors, and the French mitrailleuse, are machine guns.
To blow great guns (Naut.), to blow a gale. See Gun, n., 3.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words


Share |




"Gun barrel" Quotes from Famous Books



... fitted by the carpenter upon a large cooking pot; and over the hole he funded an inverted tea kettle, with the spout cut off. To the stump of the spout, was fitted a part of the tube of a speaking trumpet; and this was lengthened by a gun barrel, which passed through a cask of salt water, serving as a cooler. From this machine, good fresh water, to the amount of twenty-five to forty gallons per day, was procured; and obtained a preference to that contained in the few casks remaining ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... a short lull, then something heavy smashed against the shutter and it collapsed in the room. As it did so a gun barrel was thrust in the opening, and a shot was fired apparently at random. The bullet struck the cabin wall a full two yards from where Helen was standing. ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... thrilled to find that his erratic loop had actually dropped over the end of the gun barrel. A quick jerk at the proper instant tightened the clutch, and after that it was the easiest thing in the world to pull the weapon up within reach ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... one with nickel and the other with brass, is not to poison, but to prevent the lead from fouling the rifles. The point is almost reached in modern guns of 2,000 and 3,000 yards range where the friction of the gun barrel and the speed of the missile at the muzzle are sufficient to fuse unprotected lead, and at any rate so much of the soft material would soon he left in the grooves as to impair accuracy and endanger the structure ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... machines were employed in preparing and finishing the rough forgings he had seen made and annealed. Thus, for example, in a receiver for a gun stock, one machine worked a bevel edge on it, another bored it to the size of the gun barrel, accurate to the thousandth part of an inch, another pierced the tiny screw holes, and yet other machines made even the minute screw, done, as was explained to Hamilton, so that the threads in each should ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... upon, and that is the preparation of the "hunter's medicine" and the pictographic drawings employed in connection therewith. The compound is made of several plants, the leaves and roots of which are ground into powder. A little of this is put into the gun barrel, with the bullet, and sometimes a small pinch is dropped upon the track of the animal to compel it to halt at whatever place it may be when the powder is so sprinkled upon ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... around our necks and our shoes in one hand and rifles in the other. The rapids ran very fast and the last I saw of Somerset he was sitting on the bank he had started from counting out wet bank notes and blowing the water out of his gun barrel. I got across all right by sticking my feet between rocks and put on my shoes and crawled up on the old Johnnie. He smelt of musk so strong that you could have found him in the dark. I had, a beautiful ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis


Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com