cannon

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A large mounted weapon that fires heavy projectiles. Cannon include guns, howitzers, and mortars.
2. n. The loop at the top of a bell by which it is hung.
3. n. A round bit for a horse.
4. n. Zoology The section of the lower leg in some hoofed mammals between the hock or knee and the fetlock, containing the cannon bone.
5. n. Chiefly British A carom made in billiards.
6. v. To bombard with cannon.
7. v. Chiefly British To cause to carom in billiards.
8. v. To fire cannon.
9. v. Chiefly British To make a carom in billiards.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. An engine, supported on a stationary or movable frame called a gun-carriage, for throwing balls and other missiles by the force of gunpowder; a big gun; a piece of ordnance. Cannons are made of iron, brass, bronze, or steel, and of different sizes, carrying balls from 3 or 4 pounds weight up to 2,000 pounds and more. The caliber or power of cannon may be expressed by the weight of the shot fired: as, a 32-pounder; by the diameter of the bore: as, 8 12-inch gun; or by the weight of the gun itself: as, an 8-hundredweight gun; a 25-ton gun. Before the introduction of armor-plating, the naval guns in use in line-of-battle ships and frigates were 68-pounders (95 hundredweight), 8-inch shell-guns (65 hundredweight), and 32-pounders (42 to 58 hundredweight). Now ships are spoken of as armed with 6½-, 12-, 18-, 25-, 38-, etc., ton guns, the 18-ton gan throwing 400-pound projectiles, and the 25-ton gun 600-pound, and so on, the weight of the ball rising with the weight of the piece. Cannon weighing more than 100 tons have recently been constructed. The 100-ton gun is charged with 340 pounds of powder, and discharges a bolt of steel or chilled iron weighing 2,000 pounds. Cannon of the smaller calibers are mounted on wheeled carriages for service as field-pieces. In the United States army the guns in service are 8-, 10-, 13-, 15-, and 20-inch smooth-bore Rodman guns, and 3-, 3.2-, 4.5-, 8-, and 12-inch rifled guns. The American 8-inch rifled gun is the 10-inch Rodman smooth-bore, lined with a coiled wrought-iron or steel tube. The 3.2-inch gun is a steel field-piece. In the United States navy, 6-, 8-, and 10-inch steel guns have been adopted for the cruisers of recent design. The principal parts of a cannon are: 1st, the breech, which is the mass of solid metal behind the bottom or end of the bore, and extending to the base-ring; 2d, in muzzle-loading cannon, the cascabel, a projection in rear of the base-ring including the knob, the spherical part between the knob and the base-ring being called the base of the breech; 3d, the reinforce, the thickest part of the cylinder, extending from the base-ring forward; 4th, the trunnions, which project on each side, and serve to support the cannon; 5th, the bore or caliber, the interior of the cylinder, wherein the powder and shot are lodged, and which may be smooth or rifled, though rifled cannons have virtually superseded the smooth-bores; 6th, the muzzle or mouth of the bore. Cannon are often made so as to be loaded at the breech, various devices being employed to effect this object. Cannon were formerly classed as whole cannons, demi-cannons, culverins, sakers, etc., but are now classified as guns, howitzers, carronades, and mortars; also as field-, mountain-, coast-, sea-, and siege-guns. See gun.
2. n. In machinery, a hollow cylindrical piece through which a revolving shaft passes, and which, may revolve independently, and with a greater or less speed than that of the shaft. Such, for example, is the prolongation of the eye of a wheel when bored to fit a spindle or shaft on which it is intended to work loose, as the part a of the wheel A, loose on the shaft b.
3. n. That part of a bit let into the horse's mouth. Also canon, cannon-bit, canon-bit.
4. n. The cannon-bone.
5. n. The ear or loop of a bell by which it is suspended. Also spelled canon.
6. n. In surgery, an instrument used in sewing up wounds.
7. n. plural Ornamental rolls which terminated the breeches or hose at the knee. Minsheu, 1617. Also written canions, cannions, and canons.
8. n. [⟨ cannon, v., 2.] In billiards, a carom: little used in the United States, but common in Great Britain. See carom.
9. To discharge cannon; cannonade.
10. In billiards, to make a cannon or carom; hence, to strike one thing and then rebound and strike another; carom.
11. In loading logs by steam- or horse-power, to send up (a log) so that it swings crosswise, instead of parallel to the load.

Wiktionary

1. n. A large-bore machine gun.
2. n. A bone of a horse's leg, between the fetlock joint and the knee or hock.
3. n. historical A large muzzle-loading artillery piece.
4. n. sports, billiards, snooker, pool A carom.
5. n. baseball The arm of a player that can throw well.
6. v. To bombard with cannons
7. v. sports, billiards, snooker, pool To play the carom billiard shot. To strike two balls with the cue ball
8. v. To fire something, especially spherical, rapidly.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A great gun; a piece of ordnance or artillery; a firearm for discharging heavy shot with great force.
2. n. (Mech.) A hollow cylindrical piece carried by a revolving shaft, on which it may, however, revolve independently.
3. n. (Printing.) A kind of type. See Canon.
4. v. To discharge cannon.
5. v. To collide or strike violently, esp. so as to glance off or rebound; to strike and rebound.
6. (Billiards), engraving See carom.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. heavy gun fired from a tank
2. n. lower part of the leg extending from the hock to the fetlock in hoofed mammals
3. v. fire a cannon
4. n. a shot in billiards in which the cue ball contacts one object ball and then the other
5. n. heavy automatic gun fired from an airplane
6. n. (Middle Ages) a cylindrical piece of armor plate to protect the arm
7. n. a large artillery gun that is usually on wheels
8. v. make a cannon