Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Small shot which scatter like hailstones in firing; grape-shot.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun plural obsolete Small shot which scatter like hailstones.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete Small shot that scatters like hailstones.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

hail +‎ shot

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Examples

  • Sometimes we take them by surprise and fire amongst them with hailshot, immediately that we have made them rise, so that sixty, seventy, and eighty fall all at once, which is very pleasant to see.

    Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664 1898

  • So soone as we were come to an anker in Totnes rode vnder Mount Raleigh, we espied foure white beares at the foot of the mount: we supposing them to be goats or wolues, manned our boats and went towards them: but when we came neere the shore, we found them to be white beares of a monstrous bignesse: we being desirous of fresh victuall and the sport, began to assault them, and I being on land, one of them came downe the hill right against me: my piece was charged with hailshot and a bullet: I discharged my piece and shot him in the necke; he roared a litle, and tooke the water straight, making small account of his hurt.

    The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. Richard Hakluyt 1584

  • No, sir, they shun a divine who can understand the holy text, as a crow is said to keep wide of a gun loaded with hailshot. "

    Woodstock; or, the Cavalier Walter Scott 1801

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