different between beam vs cannon

English

Etymology

From Middle English beem, from Old English b?am (“tree, cross, gallows, column, pillar, wood, beam, splint, post, stock, rafter, piece of wood”), from Proto-Germanic *baumaz (“tree, beam, balk”), from Proto-Indo-European *b?ew- (“to grow, swell”). Cognate with West Frisian beam (“tree”), Saterland Frisian Boom (“tree”), Dutch boom (“tree”), German Low German Boom (“tree”), German Baum (“tree”), Luxembourgish Bam (“tree”), Albanian bimë (“a plant”). Doublet of boom.

The verb is from Middle English bemen, from Old English b?amian (“to shine, to cast forth rays or beams of light”), from the noun.

Pronunciation

• enPR: b?m, IPA^(key): /bi?m/
• Rhymes: -i?m

Noun

beam (plural beams)

1. Any large piece of timber or iron long in proportion to its thickness, and prepared for use.

   • And a letter vnto Asaph the keeper of the kings forrest, that he may giue me timber to make beames for the gates of the palace which appertained to the house, and for the wall of the Citie, and for the house that I shall enter into: And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God vpon me.

2. One of the principal horizontal structural members, usually of timber or concrete, of a building; one of the transverse members of a ship's frame on which the decks are laid — supported at the sides by knees in wooden ships and by stringers in steel ones.
   • 1905, Beatrix Potter, The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle

     Lucie opened the door: and what do you think there was inside the hill?—a nice clean kitchen with a flagged floor and wooden beams—just like any other farm kitchen.

3. (nautical) The maximum width of a vessel (note that a vessel with a beam of 15 foot can also be said to be 15 foot abeam)

   Synonym: breadth

   • 1892, Sydney Marow Eardley-Wilmot, The Development of Navies During the Last Half-Century Chapter 7

     Being only 280 ft. long, with a beam of 66 ft, their speed is moderate, and for a long time difficulty was experienced in steering them.

4. The crossbar of a mechanical balance, from the ends of which the scales are suspended.
5. The principal stem of the antler of a deer.
6. (literary) The pole of a carriage or chariot.
8. (textiles) A cylinder of wood, making part of a loom, on which weavers wind the warp before weaving and the cylinder on which the cloth is rolled, as it is woven.
9. The straight part or shank of an anchor.
10. The central bar of a plow, to which the handles and colter are secured, and to the end of which are attached the oxen or horses that draw it.
11. In steam engines, a heavy iron lever having an oscillating motion on a central axis, one end of which is connected with the piston rod from which it receives motion, and the other with the crank of the wheel shaft.

    Synonyms: working beam, walking beam

12. A ray or collection of approximately parallel rays emitted from the sun or other luminous body.

    a beam of light

    a beam of energy
13. (figuratively) A ray; a gleam.

    a beam of hope, or of comfort
14. One of the long feathers in the wing of a hawk.

    Synonym: beam feather

15. (music) A horizontal bar which connects the stems of two or more notes to group them and to indicate metric value.
16. (railway) An elevated rectangular dirt pile used to cheaply build an elevated portion of a railway.

Hyponyms

• (textiles): fore beam, back beam

See also

• Thesaurus:stick

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

beam (third-person singular simple present beams, present participle beaming, simple past and past participle beamed)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To emit beams of light; shine; radiate.

   to beam forth light

2. (intransitive, figuratively) To smile broadly or especially cheerfully.
3. (transitive) To furnish or supply with beams
4. (transitive) To give the appearance of beams to.
5. (transitive, science fiction) To transmit matter or information via a high-tech wireless mechanism.

   Beam me up, Scotty; there's no intelligent life down here.

   The injured crewmembers were immediately beamed to sickbay.

6. (transitive, currying) To stretch something (for example an animal hide) on a beam.
7. (transitive, weaving) To put (something) on a beam
8. (transitive, music) To connect (musical notes) with a beam, or thick line, in music notation.

Translations

Anagrams

• BAME, Bame, Mabe, ambe, bema, mabe

German

Verb

beam

1. singular imperative of beamen

Old English

Alternative forms

• beom

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *baum.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bæ???m/

Noun

b?am m (nominative plural b?amas)

1. tree

   Synonyms: tr?ow, wudu

2. beam of wood

   Synonym: bord

   1. gallows, gibbet (hanging device with a crossbeam)

      Synonym: ?ealga

   2. (by extension) the Cross
      • Codex Vercillensis

Declension

Derived terms

• si?eb?am

Descendants

• Middle English: beem
  • Scots: beme
  • English: beam
    • ? German: beamen
    • ? Japanese: ???

Romanian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [be?am]

Verb

beam

1. first-person singular imperfect indicative of bea
2. first-person plural imperfect indicative of bea

West Frisian

Etymology

From Old Frisian b?m, from Proto-West Germanic *baum.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /b???m/

Noun

beam c (plural beammen, diminutive beamke)

1. tree

Derived terms

• hefbeam

Further reading

• “beam”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011

English

Etymology

Attested from around 1400 as Middle English canon, from Old French canon, from Italian cannone, from Latin canna, from Ancient Greek ????? (kánna, “reed”), from Akkadian ???? (qanû, “reed”), from Sumerian ???????? (gi.na). Doublet of canyon.

This spelling was not fixed until about 1800.

Pronunciation

• enPR: k?n'?n, IPA^(key): /?kæn.?n/
• Rhymes: -æn?n
• Homophone: canon

Noun

cannon (countable and uncountable, plural (mainly UK) cannons or cannon)

1. 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. It may include muzzle appendages.
2. Any similar device for shooting material out of a tube.
   1. (military, aviation) An autocannon.
3. A bone of a horse's leg, between the fetlock joint and the knee or hock.
4. A cannon bit.
5. (historical) A large muzzle-loading artillery piece.
6. (sports, billiards, snooker, pool) 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.

7. (baseball, figuratively, informal) The arm of a player that can throw well.

   He's got a cannon out in right.

8. (engineering) A hollow cylindrical piece carried by a revolving shaft, on which it may, however, revolve independently.
9. (printing, uncountable) Alternative form of canon (“a large size of type”)
10. (xiangqi) 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.

Related terms

• autocannon
• cannonade
• cannonball
• cannoneer
• glass cannon
• nursery cannon

Translations

Verb

cannon (third-person singular simple present cannons, present participle cannoning, simple past and past participle cannoned)

1. To bombard with cannons.
2. (sports, billiards, snooker, pool) 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.
4. To collide or strike violently, especially so as to glance off or rebound.
   • 1898, Rudyard Kipling, "The Maltese Cat" in The Day's Work, [2]

     […] he heard the right-hand goal post crack as a pony cannoned into it—crack, splinter, and fall like a mast.

   • 1952, C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Collins, 1998, Chapter 11,

     She ran down the stairs which she had come up so nervously that morning and cannoned into Edmund at the bottom.

Translations

References

Further reading

• cannon on Wikipedia.Wikipedia