Adjacent Words

Ordnance definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

ORD'NANCE, n. [from ordinance.] Cannon or great guns, mortars and howitzers; artillery.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: military supplies [syn: munition, ordnance, ordnance store]
2: large but transportable armament [syn: artillery, heavy weapon, gun, ordnance]

Merriam Webster's

noun Etymology: Middle English ordinaunce, from Anglo-French ordenance disposition, preparation, military provisions — more at ordinance Date: 14th century 1. a. military supplies including weapons, ammunition, combat vehicles, and maintenance tools and equipment b. a service of the army charged with the procuring, distributing, and safekeeping of ordnance 2. cannon, artillery

U.S. Military Dictionary

Explosives, chemicals, pyrotechnics, and similar stores, e.g., bombs, guns and ammunition, flares, smoke, or napalm.

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. 1 mounted guns; cannon. 2 a branch of government service dealing esp. with military stores and materials. Phrases and idioms: ordnance datum Brit. mean sea level as defined for Ordnance Survey. Ordnance map Brit. a map produced by Ordnance Survey. Ordnance Survey Brit. (in the UK) an official survey organization, orig. under the Master of the Ordnance, preparing large-scale detailed maps of the whole country. Etymology: ME var. of ORDINANCE

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Ordnance Ord"nance, n. [From OE. ordenance, referring orig. to the bore or size of the cannon. See Ordinance.] Heavy weapons of warfare; cannon, or great guns, mortars, and howitzers; artillery; sometimes, a general term for all weapons and appliances used in war. All the battlements their ordnance fire. --Shak. Then you may hear afar off the awful roar of his [Rufus Choate's] rifled ordnance. --E. Ererett. Ordnance survey, the official survey of Great Britain and Ireland, conducted by the ordnance department.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Gun Gun, n. [OE. gonne, gunne; of uncertain origin; cf. Ir., Gael.) A LL. gunna, W. gum; possibly (like cannon) fr. L. canna reed, tube; or abbreviated fr. OF. mangonnel, E. mangonel, a machine for hurling stones.] 1. A weapon which throws or propels a missile to a distance; any firearm or instrument for throwing projectiles by the explosion of gunpowder, consisting of a tube or barrel closed at one end, in which the projectile is placed, with an explosive charge behind, which is ignited by various means. Muskets, rifles, carbines, and fowling pieces are smaller guns, for hand use, and are called small arms. Larger guns are called cannon, ordnance, fieldpieces, carronades, howitzers, etc. See these terms in the Vocabulary. As swift as a pellet out of a gunne When fire is in the powder runne. --Chaucer. The word gun was in use in England for an engine to cast a thing from a man long before there was any gunpowder found out. --Selden. 2. (Mil.) A piece of heavy ordnance; in a restricted sense, a cannon. 3. pl. (Naut.) Violent blasts of wind. Note: Guns are classified, according to their construction or manner of loading as rifled or smoothbore, breech-loading or muzzle-loading, cast or built-up guns; or according to their use, as field, mountain, prairie, seacoast, and siege guns. Armstrong gun, a wrought iron breech-loading cannon named after its English inventor, Sir William Armstrong. Great gun, a piece of heavy ordnance; hence (Fig.), a person superior in any way. Gun barrel, the barrel or tube of a gun. Gun carriage, the carriage on which a gun is mounted or moved. Gun cotton (Chem.), a general name for a series of explosive nitric ethers of cellulose, obtained by steeping cotton in nitric and sulphuric acids. Although there are formed substances containing nitric acid radicals, yet the results exactly resemble ordinary cotton in appearance. It burns without ash, with explosion if confined, but quietly and harmlessly if free and open, and in small quantity. Specifically, the lower nitrates of cellulose which are insoluble in ether and alcohol in distinction from the highest (pyroxylin) which is soluble. See Pyroxylin, and cf. Xyloidin. The gun cottons are used for blasting and somewhat in gunnery: for making celluloid when compounded with camphor; and the soluble variety (pyroxylin) for making collodion. See Celluloid, and Collodion. Gun cotton is frequenty but improperly called nitrocellulose. It is not a nitro compound, but an ethereal salt of nitric acid. Gun deck. See under Deck. Gun fire, the time at which the morning or the evening gun is fired. Gun metal, a bronze, ordinarily composed of nine parts of copper and one of tin, used for cannon, etc. The name is also given to certain strong mixtures of cast iron. Gun port (Naut.), an opening in a ship through which a cannon's muzzle is run out for firing. Gun tackle (Naut.), the blocks and pulleys affixed to the side of a ship, by which a gun carriage is run to and from the gun port. Gun tackle purchase (Naut.), a tackle composed of two single blocks and a fall. --Totten. Krupp gun, a wrought steel breech-loading cannon, named after its German inventor, Herr Krupp. Machine gun, a breech-loading gun or a group of such guns, mounted on a carriage or other holder, and having a reservoir containing cartridges which are loaded into the gun or guns and fired in rapid succession, sometimes in volleys, by machinery operated by turning a crank. Several hundred shots can be fired in a minute with accurate aim. The Gatling gun, Gardner gun, Hotchkiss gun, and Nordenfelt gun, named for their inventors, and the French mitrailleuse, are machine guns. To blow great guns (Naut.), to blow a gale. See Gun, n., 3.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

Ordnance refers to military supplies, especially weapons. (FORMAL) ...a team clearing an area littered with unexploded ordnance.

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. Cannon, great guns, artillery.

Moby Thesaurus

A-weapons, armament, arms, artillery, battery, biological weapons, cannon, cannonry, coast artillery, conventional weapons, deadly weapons, field artillery, flak, heavy field artillery, instruments of destruction, missilery, munitions, musketry, nuclear weapons, side arms, siege artillery, siege engine, small arms, thermonuclear weapons, trench artillery, weaponry, weapons