Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A piece of ordnance formerly used for discharging stones, fragments of iron, etc., and also for firing salutes.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Mil.) A term formerly applied to a short piece of chambered ordnance.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun military, obsolete A short piece of
chambered ordnance .
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Spanish pedrero.
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Examples
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[37] Also written "pederero" -- from Old Spanish _pedra_, "a stone;" so named because of the use of stone for balls, before iron balls were invented; a swivel-gun.
chained_bear commented on the word pederero
"... a small piece of ordnance formerly used on board some foreign ships, for the discharging of nails, broken iron, or partridge shot, on an enemy attempting to board. It is generally open at the breach, and the chamber made to take out to be loaded that way, instead of at the muzzle. This species of ordnance is managed by a swivel, and was formerly much in use against the Spaniards."
—Falconer's New Universal Dictionary of the Marine (1816), 340
October 11, 2008