Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

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

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A short gun or firearm with a large bore and funnel-shaped muzzle, capable of holding a number of balls or slugs, and intended to be used at a limited range without exact aim. It has been long obsolete in civilized countries.
  2. n. A stupid, blundering person.

Wiktionary

  1. n. Old style of firearm with a distinctive large opening at the muzzle, therefore able to fire quantities of nails, stones, shot, etc.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. A short gun or firearm, with a large bore, capable of holding a number of balls, and intended to do execution without exact aim.
  2. n. A stupid, blundering fellow.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a short musket of wide bore with a flared muzzle

Etymologies

  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).

Examples

  • “I always like being able to work the word blunderbuss into a post.”

    Hoisting The Jolly Roger

  • “It is hardly clear that President Gore would have made the centerpiece of his Administration a war on Iraq, and that he would have engaged in blunderbuss diplomacy that would fracture alliances of fifty years’ standing, and squander all the good will America enjoyed in the wake of the terrorist attacks.”

    Balkinization

  • “The arts have replaced heavy industry as a driver of the British economy and should not be subjected to "blunderbuss" government cuts, according to Melvyn Bragg.”

    Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph

  • “In Charles Vidor's evergreen 1946 oddity Gilda – a studio-bound noir thriller that often feels more like an underlit musical comedy – the imperishable, impossible and irreplaceable Rita Hayworth reaches out across nearly seven decades of vanished time to prove that she still, with one extended little finger and a blunderbuss double-entendre, has the power to knock every man in the audience flat on his ass.”

    The Guardian: Gilda is pure, undistilled Rita Hayworth

  • “In 1979 Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of DNA, lamented the blunderbuss nature of existing technologies.”

    Simon & Schuster: World Wide Mind

  • “Winding through this timberland of wind catchers, Ken stops to point out the original seed, the squat "blunderbuss," a ducted turbine installed in 1926 by one Dew Oliver, who raised $12 million for his scheme, but ended up convicted of fraud, though today he would not only be absolved, but crowned a haruspex, the Benjamin Graham of energy pickers.”

    The Huffington Post: Richard Bangs: How Green Is My Valley?

  • “Capping off the trend was a Supreme Court decision last year disarming the "honest services" blunderbuss, which threatened to turn any self-interested behavior by a CEO into a crime.”

    The Wall Street Journal: Angelo Mozilo's Story

  • “The problem is that Hess et al. target their opponents with the accuracy of a 353-year-old blunderbuss.”

    The Huffington Post: John Thompson: 'Greenfield' vs. 'Brownfield' Schools

  • “July 9th, 2009 9: 45 am ET what a blunderbuss! bet he stayed up all night to craft that little speech. politicians worry constantly over "message" not so much truth and resolution. keep that up in the future we will be in the same boneyard as all the other great empires before us. check out history folks”

    Jeb Bush: 'I don't know' if Obama is a socialist

  • “Better hoard your gold under the bed and keep the old blunderbuss handy.”

    Looking for a leader, Tea Partiers issue invite to Palin

Show 10 more examples...

Lists

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‘blunderbuss’ has been looked up 2037 times, loved by 4 people, added to 51 lists, commented on 2 times, and has a Scrabble score of 16.