Wiktionary

organ gun

English edit

WOTD – 28 July 2024

Etymology edit

 
An organ gun illustrated in Konrad Keyser’s work Bellifortis, a 15th-century manual of military technology.
 
The machine infernale or infernal machine, a homemade 25-barrel organ gun built by Giuseppe Marco Fieschi and used in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate King Louis Philippe I of France on 28 July 1835. The weapon is now displayed at the Musée des Archives Nationales in Paris.

From organ +‎ gun. The multiple barrels of the device were thought to resemble the pipes of a pipe organ.[1]

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

organ gun (plural organ guns)

  1. (firearms, historical) A large, portable firearm normally supported by wheels, in which bullets may be fired from a row of several tubes in succession; it was chiefly used from the 14th to the 17th century.
    Synonyms: infernal machine, mitrailleur, rabauld, ribauldequin, ribaudkin, ribault

Hypernyms edit

Hyponyms edit

Translations edit

References edit

  1. ^ “organ gun, n.”, in OED Online  ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2023.

Further reading edit

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