Whitworth gun
Whitworth gun noun: a form of rifled cannon and small arms. The bore has a polygonal section, and the twist is rapid. The ball, which is pointed in front, is made to fit the bore accurately, and is very much elongated, its length being about three-and-a-half times its diameter.
Noun
Whitworth gun (plural Whitworth guns)
- A form of rifled cannon and small arms. The bore has a polygonal section, and the twist is rapid. The ball, which is pointed in front, is made to fit the bore accurately, and is very much elongated, its length being about three-and-a-half times its diameter.
- THE WHITWORTH GUN. — Mr. Whitworth, of Manchester, has succeeded in constructing several rifled breech-loading cannon of various calibres: his 3-pounder gun, 208 lbs. in weight, with a calibre of 1½ inches, a charge of 8 oz. of powder,[…]1863, Henry Lee Scott, Military Dictionary
Forms of Whitworth gun
| plural | Whitworth guns |
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Origin of Whitworth gun
Invented by Sir Joseph Whitworth of Manchester, England.
Questions about Whitworth gun
- What does Whitworth gun mean?
- Whitworth gun means a form of rifled cannon and small arms. The bore has a polygonal section, and the twist is rapid. The ball, which is pointed in front, is made to fit the bore accurately, and is very much elongated, its length being about three-and-a-half times its diameter.
- What part of speech is Whitworth gun?
- Whitworth gun is a noun.
- What is the plural of Whitworth gun?
- The plural of Whitworth gun is Whitworth guns.
Words near Whitworth gun in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Whitworth gun (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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Cite this entry: “Whitworth gun.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/whitworth_gun. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
