blunderbuss

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Definitions (6)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun A short musket of wide bore and flaring muzzle, formerly used to scatter shot at close range.
  2. noun A person regarded as clumsy and stupid.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (2)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples

  • Philippe borrowed a dozen handkerchiefs (not from accomplices), and after placing them in a blunderbuss, he fired at one of the sugar-loaves chosen by the audience. —  Memoirs of Robert-Houdin
  • Bolingbroke had died in 1751, and in 1754 his philosophical works were posthumously given to the world by David Mallet, Dr. Johnson's beggarly Scotchman, to whom Bolingbroke had left half-a-crown in his will, for firing off a blunderbuss which he was afraid to fire off himself. —  Burke
  • Travellers armed themselves on setting out upon a journey as if they were going to battle, and a blunderbuss was considered as indispensable for a coachman as a whip. —  The Life of Thomas Telford
  • He saw a blunderbuss, a musket with a shortened barrel, pointed at him. —  A Place Called Freedom
  • Some of the New Guineans had stabbing spears, and there was the odd blunderbuss or flintlock pistol here and there, though firearms, like steam engines, were hard to maintain in die Spiral, among - whose mazes no major industry could flourish. —  The Gates of Noon
 

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Blunderbuss has been looked up 375 times, favorited twice, listed 47 times, and commented on once.

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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Alteration of Dutch donderbus : donder, thunder (from Middle Dutch doner; see (s)tenə- in Indo-European roots) + bus, gun (from Middle Dutch busse, tube, from Latin buxis, box; see box1).

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. In 17th century also blunderbus and blunderbush; apparently a modification, prob. with humorous allusion to its blundering or random action, of Dutch donderbus (= German donnerbüchse), a blunderbuss, from donder (= German donner = English thunder) + bus, a box, urn, barrel of a gun, same as buis, a tube, pipe, = German büchse, a box, pot, barrel of a gun, pipe, etc., = English box. Cf. the equivalent G. blunderbüchse, in imitation of the English, but prob. with a thought of plunder, baggage, lumber (English plunder), in allusion to its heaviness. A charter of James I. (1617) mentions “plantier-busse, alias blanterbusse,” as equivalent to harquebuse, but the first element here is different, ult. from Latin plantare, plant (fix). Cf. Scots blunyierd, an old gun, any old rusty weapon.
 

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/ˈbləndərbəs/
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