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For artillery, Hussites used the Czech: houfnice, which gave rise to the English term, "howitzer" (houf meaning crowd for its intended use of shooting stone and iron shot against massed enemy forces), [47] [48] [49] bombarda and dělo . [50] The first English source about handheld firearms discussed hand cannons in 1473. [51]
The Middle English word Canon was derived from the Tuscan word cannone, meaning large tube, which came from Latin canna, meaning cane or reed. [2] The Latinised word canon has been used for a gun since 1326 in Italy, and since 1418 in English.
The word "cannon", derived from the Greek kanun and Latin canna, meaning "tube," is used for the first time in Europe. [72] West: The word "gun" is used to describe a firearm in English for the first time. [72] 1340: China: A "watermelon bomb" containing miniature rockets known as "ground rats" is employed by Liu Bowen against rebels and ...
When referring to cannons, the term gun is often used incorrectly. In military usage, a gun is a cannon with a high muzzle velocity and comparatively flat trajectory, [146] as opposed to other types of artillery, such as howitzers or mortars, which have lower muzzle velocities, and usually fire indirectly. [147] [148]
Name Image Notes Base: A long, narrow 15th–16th century cannon [1]: Bombard: First recorded use in 1326, made of brass. [2]Culverin: A long-range cannon, first mentioned in 1410 [3]
According to Joseph Needham, fire lances or proto-guns were known to Muslims by the late 13th century and early 14th century. [26] However the term midfa, dated to textual sources from 1342 to 1352, cannot be proven to be true hand-guns or bombards, and contemporary accounts of a metal-barrel cannon in the Islamic world do not occur until 1365 ...
Old Japanese weapons and other military paraphernalia, c. 1892–95 A Gilbertese shark-toothed weapon (late 19th century). Major innovations in the history of weapons have included the adoption of different materials – from stone and wood to different metals, and modern synthetic materials such as plastics – and the developments of different weapon styles either to fit the terrain or to ...
The "true gun" appears to have emerged in late 1200s China, around 300 years after the appearance of the fire lance. [4] [5] Although the term "gun" postdates the invention of firearms, historians have applied it to the earliest firearms such as the Heilongjiang hand cannon of 1288 [17] or the vase shaped European cannon of 1326. [18]