cannon

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
8
Words With Friends
12
Letters
6
Pronunciation
/ˈkæn.ən/
See all 2 pronunciations
/ˈkæn.ən/ · /ˈkænən/

Definition of cannon

21 senses · 4 parts of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. (countable, uncountable)A complete assembly, consisting of an artillery tube and a breech mechanism, firing mechanism or base cap, which is a component of a gun, howitzer or mortar, which may include muzzle appendages.
    “Holonyms: gun, field gun; howitzer; mortar”
See all 21 definitions

noun

  1. (countable, uncountable)A complete assembly, consisting of an artillery tube and a breech mechanism, firing mechanism or base cap, which is a component of a gun, howitzer or mortar, which may include muzzle appendages.
    “Holonyms: gun, field gun; howitzer; mortar”
  2. (countable, uncountable)Any similar device for shooting material out of a tube.
    “water cannon; glitter cannon; confetti cannon; potato cannon”
  3. (countable, uncountable)Any similar device for shooting material out of a tube.
  4. (countable, uncountable)A bone of a horse’s leg, between the fetlock joint and the knee or hock.
  5. (countable, uncountable)A rolled and filleted loin of meat.
    “a canon of beef or lamb”
  6. (countable, uncountable)A cannon bit.
  7. (countable, historical, uncountable)A large muzzle-loading artillery piece.
    “Near-synonym: gun (often synonymous)”
  8. (countable, uncountable)A carom.
    “In English billiards, a cannon is when one’s cue ball strikes the other player’s cue ball and the red ball on the same shot; and it is worth two points.”
  9. (countable, figuratively, informal, uncountable)The arm of a player who can throw well.
    “He’s got a cannon out in right.”
  10. (countable, uncountable)A hollow cylindrical piece carried by a revolving shaft, on which it may, however, revolve independently.
  11. (countable, historical, uncountable)A cylindrical item of plate armor protecting the arm, particularly one of a pair of such cylinders worn with a couter, the upper cannon protecting the upper arm and the lower cannon protecting the forearm.
    “The pauldrons are rather weak, but the cannons of the vambraces are good and come from an Italian armour of considerably earlier date, for they have the tulip form of the first half of the century.”
    “During the second half of the century the upper cannons were often joined to the pauldrons […] Here the cannons and the couter, although separate, are joined together when worn by the points securing them to the arming […]”
    “The breastplate was now usually globular in shape with attached tassets. The arm defenses were almost always in one piece, the lower and upper cannons joined permanently to the couter with internal leathers and rivets, and the whole frequently also joined permanently to the pauldron.”
  12. (alt-of, alternative, uncountable)Alternative form of canon (“a large size of type”).
  13. (countable, uncountable)A piece which moves horizontally and vertically like a rook but captures another piece by jumping over a different piece in the line of attack.
  14. (US, countable, slang, uncountable)A pickpocket.
    “I also learned never to conspicuoulsy^([sic]) watch a cannon while he was working. Pickpockets dislike being watched, even by those who may be "right," because they become uneasy and clumsy and feel conspicuous.”
    “A good pickpocket is known to his fellows as a pistol. Rufus Dayne is a cannon. One of the best pickpockets in the country, he makes close to a million dollars a year and has no criminal record at all.”
  15. (alt-of, misspelling, slang)Misspelling of canon.

verb

  1. To bombard with cannons.
  2. To play the carom billiard shot; to strike two balls with the cue ball.
    “The white cannoned off the red onto the pink.”
  3. To fire something, especially spherical, rapidly.
    “Montenegro had hardly threatened in the second period but served notice they were still potent as Nikola Vukcevic took a smart pass from Jovetic and cannoned a shot off Hennessey's shins.”
  4. To collide or strike violently, especially so as to glance off or rebound.
    “[…] he heard the right-hand goal post crack as a pony cannoned into it—crack, splinter, and fall like a mast.”
    “She ran down the stairs which she had come up so nervously that morning and cannoned into Edmund at the bottom.”

adj

  1. (alt-of, misspelling, slang)Misspelling of canon.

name

  1. A surname.
    “The hearing in front of Judge Aileen M. Cannon at a federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, Fla., could touch on other issues, including the scheduling of the trial.”

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

Attested from around 1400 as Middle English canon, canoun, from Old French canon, from Italian cannone, from Latin canna, from Ancient Greek κάννα (kánna, “reed”), from Akkadian 𒄀 (qanû, “reed”), from Sumerian 𒄀𒈾 (gi.na). Doublet of canyon. This spelling was not fixed until about 1800.

Words you can make from cannon

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5-letter words

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4-letter words

4 words

3-letter words

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2-letter words

4 words

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