Word.ws English Dictionary

pyroballogy

Syllables: py·ro·bal·lo·gy/ˌpaɪ.ɹəʊˈbæl.ə.d͡ʒi/US/ˌpaɪ.ɹoʊˈbæ.lə.d͡ʒi/

pyroballogy noun: the study of artillery; the practice of using artillery as a weapon.

pyroballogy: the study of artillery; the practice of using artillery as a weapon
Image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

pyroballogy (uncountable)

  1. (obsolete, rare) The study of artillery; the practice of using artillery as a weapon.
    • [H]e was enabled, by the help of ſome marginal documents at the feet of the elephant, together with Gobeſius’s military architecture and pyroballogy, tranſlated from the Flemiſh, to form his diſcourse with paſſable perſpicuity.1759, [Laurence Sterne], chapter III, in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, 2nd (1st London) edition, volume II, London: […] R[obert] and J[ames] Dodsley […], published 1760, →OCLC...
    • [H]e threw a faithless cipher of moon into the sky, put beneath it a fatherless girl craving affection, and then helpless before the doom of his own contrivances watched in his mind, possibly on that very prom night or in a car parked on an overlook up in the Blue Ridge mountains, the hideous...1981, Alexander Theroux, Darconville’s Cat, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, →ISBN, page 137
    Synonyms:
    pyrobology, pyroboly

Examples of pyroballogy in a sentence

  • Pyroballogy, Lieutenant Drinkwater, is the art of throwing fire.1984, Richard Woodman, “Powder and Shot: February 1801”, in The Bomb Vessel, London: John Murray, →ISBN; republished as The Bomb Vessel: A...
  • It is what's called repulsion, one of the forces most commonly employed in pyroballogy.1985, Kris Hemensley, editor, The Best of The Ear: The Ear in a Wheatfield 1973–76: A Portrait of a Magazine, Melbourne, Vic.: Rigmarole...

Synonyms of pyroballogy

Origin of pyroballogy

A variant of pyrobology, from pyro- (prefix meaning ‘fire, heat’) (from Ancient Greek πῦρ (pûr, “fire; lightning”)) + Ancient Greek βάλλειν (bállein, “to throw”) + -logy (suffix indicating a branch of learning or study of a particular subject) (from Ancient Greek -λογῐ́ᾱ (-logĭ́ā), from λόγος (lógos, “word, speech; reason, reckoning; account, explanation”)). βάλλειν is derived from βᾰ́λλω (bắllō, “to hurl, throw; to strike, touch”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʷelH- (“to pierce; to throw, to hit by throwing”).

Questions about pyroballogy

What does pyroballogy mean?
Pyroballogy means the study of artillery; the practice of using artillery as a weapon.
How do you use pyroballogy in a sentence?
Pyroballogy, Lieutenant Drinkwater, is the art of throwing fire.
What part of speech is pyroballogy?
Pyroballogy is a noun.
How do you pronounce pyroballogy?
Pyroballogy is pronounced /ˌpaɪ.ɹəʊˈbæl.ə.d͡ʒi/ (UK).

Words near pyroballogy in the dictionary

  1. pyroarsenate
  2. pyroarsenates
  3. pyroarsenic
  4. pyroarsenic acid
  5. pyroaurite
  6. pyroballogy
  7. pyrobelonite
  8. pyrobitumen
  9. pyrobitumens
  10. pyrobituminous
  11. pyrobolic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pyroballogy (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-pyroballogy.wav.

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