Guns are classified, according to their construction or manner of
loading as rifled or smoothbore, breech- loading or muzzle-loading,
cast or built-up guns; or according to their use, as field, mountain,
prairie, seacoast, and siege guns.
Armstrong gun, a wrought iron breech-loading cannon named after its
English inventor, Sir William Armstrong. -- Great gun, a piece of heavy
ordnance; hence (Fig.), a person superior in any way. -- Gun barrel,
the barrel or tube of a gun. -- Gun carriage, the carriage on which a
gun is mounted or moved. -- Gun cotton (Chem.), a general name for a
series of explosive nitric ethers of cellulose, obtained by steeping
cotton in nitric and sulphuric acids. Although there are formed
substances containing nitric acid radicals, yet the results exactly
resemble ordinary cotton in appearance. It burns without ash, with
explosion if confined, but quietly and harmlessly if free and open, and
in small quantity. Specifically, the lower nitrates of cellulose which
are insoluble in ether and alcohol in distinction from the highest
(pyroxylin) which is soluble. See Pyroxylin, and cf. Xyloidin. The gun
cottons are used for blasting and somewhat in gunnery: for making
celluloid when compounded with camphor; and the soluble variety
(pyroxylin) for making collodion. See Celluloid, and Collodion. Gun
cotton is frequenty but improperly called nitrocellulose. It is not a
nitro compound, but an ethereal salt of nitric acid. -- Gun deck. See
under Deck. -- Gun fire, the time at which the morning or the evening
gun is fired. -- Gun metal, a bronze, ordinarily composed of nine parts
of copper and one of tin, used for cannon, etc. The name is also given
to certain strong mixtures of cast iron. -- Gun port (Naut.), an
opening in a ship through which a cannon's muzzle is run out for
firing. -- Gun tackle (Naut.), the blocks and pulleys affixed to the
side of a ship, by which a gun carriage is run to and from the gun
port. - - Gun tackle purchase (Naut.), a tackle composed of two single
blocks and a fall. Totten. -- Krupp gun, a wrought steel breech-loading
cannon, named after its German inventor, Herr Krupp. -- Machine gun, a
breech-loading gun or a group of such guns, mounted on a carriage or
other holder, and having a reservoir containing cartridges which are
loaded into the gun or guns and fired in rapid succession, sometimes in
volleys, by machinery operated by turning a crank. Several hundred
shots can be fired in a minute with accurate aim. The Gatling gun,
Gardner gun, Hotchkiss gun, and Nordenfelt gun, named for their
inventors, and the French mitrailleuse, are machine guns. -- To blow
great guns (Naut.), to blow a gale. See Gun, n., 3.
Gun (?), v. i. To practice fowling or hunting small game; -- chiefly in
participial form; as, to go gunning.
||Gu"na (g"n), n. [Skr. guna quality.] In Sanskrit grammar, a
||lengthening of the simple vowels a, i, e, by prefixing an a element.
||The term is sometimes used to denote the same vowel change in other
||languages.
Gu"nar*chy (?), n. See Gynarchy.
Gun"boat` (?), n. (Nav.) A vessel of light draught, carrying one or
more guns.
Gun"cot`ton (?). See under Gun.
Gun"de*let (?), n. [Obs.] See Gondola. Marston.
Gun"flint` (?), n. A sharpened flint for the lock of a gun, to ignite
the charge. It was in common use before the introduction of percussion
caps.
||Gun"jah (?), n. (Bot.) See Ganja.
Gun"lock` (?), n. The lock of a gun, for producing the discharge. See
Lock.
Gun"nage (?), n. The number of guns carried by a ship of war.
Gun"nel (?), n. [See Gunwale.] 1. A gunwale.
2. (Zoˆl.) A small, eel-shaped, marine fish of the genus MurÊnoides;
esp., M. gunnellus of Europe and America; -- called also gunnel fish,
butterfish, rock eel.
Gun"ner (?), n. 1. One who works a gun, whether on land or sea; a
cannoneer.
2. A warrant officer in the navy having charge of the ordnance on a
vessel.
3. (Zoˆl.) (a) The great northern diver or loon. See Loon. (b) The sea
bream. [Prov. Eng. or Irish]
Gunner's daughter, the gun to which men or boys were lashed for
punishment. [Sailor's slang] W. C. Russell.
Gun"ner*y (?), n. That branch of military science which comprehends the
theory of projectiles, and the manner of constructing and using
ordnance.
Gun"nie (?), n. (Mining.) Space left by the removal of ore.
Gun"ning (?), n. The act or practice of hunting or shooting game with a
gun.
The art of gunning was but little practiced.
Goldsmith.
Gun"ny (?), n., Gun"ny cloth` (&?;). [Hind. gon, gon&?;,, a sack,
sacking.] A strong, coarse kind of sacking, made from the fibers
(called jute) of two plants of the genus Corchorus (C. olitorius and C.
capsularis), of India. The fiber is also used in the manufacture of
cordage.
Gunny bag, a sack made of gunny, used for coarse commodities.
Gu*noc"ra*cy (?), n. See Gyneocracy.
Gun"pow`der (?), n. (Chem.) A black, granular, explosive substance,
consisting of an intimate mechanical mixture of niter, charcoal, and
sulphur. It is used in gunnery and blasting.
Gunpowder consists of from 70 to 80 per cent of niter, with 10 to 15
per cent of each of the other ingredients. Its explosive energy is due
to the fact that it contains the necessary amount of oxygen for its own
combustion, and liberates gases (chiefly nitrogen and carbon dioxide),
which occupy a thousand or fifteen hundred times more space than the
powder which generated them.
Gunpowder pile driver, a pile driver, the hammer of which is thrown up
by the explosion of gunpowder. -- Gunpowder plot (Eng. Hist.), a plot
to destroy the King, Lords, and Commons, in revenge for the penal laws
against Catholics. As Guy Fawkes, the agent of the conspirators, was
about to fire the mine, which was placed under the House of Lords, he
was seized, Nov. 5, 1605. Hence, Nov. 5 is known in England as Guy
Fawkes Day. -- Gunpowder tea, a species of fine green tea, each leaf of
which is rolled into a small ball or pellet.
Gun"reach` (?), n. The reach or distance to which a gun will shoot;
gunshot.
Gun"room` (&?;), n. (Naut.) An apartment on the after end of the lower
gun deck of a ship of war, usually occupied as a messroom by the
commissioned officers, except the captain; -- called wardroom in the
United States navy.
Gun"shot` (?), n. 1. Act of firing a gun; a shot.
2. The distance to which shot can be thrown from a gun, so as to be
effective; the reach or range of a gun.
Those who are come over to the royal party are supposed to be out
of gunshot.
Dryden.
Gun"shot`, a. Made by the shot of a gun: as. a gunshot wound.
Gun"smith (?), n. One whose occupation is to make or repair small
firearms; an armorer.
{ Gunsmith`er*y (?), Gun"smith` ing, } n. The art or business of a
gunsmith.
Gun"stick (?), n. A stick to ram down the charge of a musket, etc.; a
rammer or ramrod. [R.]
Gun"stock` (?), n. The stock or wood to which the barrel of a hand gun
is fastened.
Gun"stome` (?), n. A cannon ball; -- so called because originally made
of stone. [Obs.] Shak.
<! p. 659 !>
Gun"ter rig` (?). (Naut.) A topmast arranged with metal bands so that
it will readily slide up and down the lower mast.
Gun"ter's chain` (?). (Surveying) The chain ordinarily used in
measuring land. See Chain, n., 4, and Gunter's scale.
Gun"ter's line` (?). A logarithmic line on Gunter's scale, used for
performing the multiplication and division of numbers mechanically by
the dividers; -- called also line of lines, and line of numbers.
Gun"ter's quad`rant (?). A thin quadrant, made of brass, wood, etc.,
showing a stereographic projection on the plane of the equator. By it
are found the hour of the day, the sun's azimuth, the altitude of
objects in degrees, etc. See Gunter's scale.
Gun"ter's scale` (?). A scale invented by the Rev. Edmund Gunter
(1581-1626), a professor of astronomy at Gresham College, London, who
invented also Gunter's chain, and Gunter's quadrant.
Gunter's scale is a wooden rule, two feet long, on one side of which
are marked scales of equal parts, of chords, sines, tangents, rhombs,
etc., and on the other side scales of logarithms of these various
parts, by means of which many problems in surveying and navigation may
be solved, mechanically, by the aid of dividers alone.
Gun"wale (?), n. [Gun + wale. So named because the upper guns were
pointed from it.] (Naut.) The upper edge of a vessel's or boat's side;
the uppermost wale of a ship (not including the bulwarks); or that
piece of timber which reaches on either side from the quarter-deck to
the forecastle, being the uppermost bend, which finishes the upper
works of the hull. [Written also gunnel.]