Word.ws English Dictionary

culverin

/ˈkʌlvəɹɪn/

culverin noun: a kind of handgun.

Noun

culverin (plural culverins)

  1. (historical) A kind of handgun.
  2. (historical) A large cannon.
    • Let Sacars, Culuerings, and Cannons ſound / In honour of their bones, and rock the ground / With all your deafning terrors: for behold / The Balſum for your wounds, are rich mens gold, / Powder the world with wonder, and thus crie, / The Camel now may paſſe the needles eie.1616, M. Robert Anton, “The Philosophers fovrth Satyr of Mars”, in The Philosophers Satyrs, London: Printed by T[homas] C[reede] and B[ernard] A[lsop] for Roger Iackſon, page 36
    • This had been discharged from a culverin on the opposite side of the valley.1895, R. D. Blackmore, Slain By The Doones, Dodd, Mead and Company, page 6

Forms of culverin

pluralculverins

Origin of culverin

From Middle English culveryne, from Old French coulevrine, from couleuvre (“snake”) (or from Latin colubrīnus), ultimately from Latin colubra, coluber (“snake”). Doublet of colubrine.

Words formed from culverin

Questions about culverin

What does culverin mean?
Culverin means a kind of handgun.
What part of speech is culverin?
Culverin is a noun.
How do you pronounce culverin?
Culverin is pronounced /ˈkʌlvəɹɪn/.
What is the plural of culverin?
The plural of culverin is culverins.

Words near culverin in the dictionary

  1. Culver City
  2. Culver's physic
  3. Culver's root
  4. culverhouse
  5. culverhouses
  6. culverin
  7. culverineer
  8. culverineers
  9. culvering
  10. culverings
  11. culverins

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: culverin (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “culverin.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/culverin. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.