different between cannon vs cannonball

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

English

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

cannon +? ball from being a round ball that is fired from a cannon.

Noun

cannonball (plural cannonballs)

1. (military, artillery)
   1. A spherical projectile fired from a smoothbore cannon

      Synonyms: solid shot, ball, round shot

   2. An explosive-filled hollow iron sphere fused through a hole and intended to explode at a calculated distance rather than explode on impact.

Translations

Etymology 2

From behaving like a cannonball fired from a cannon

Noun

cannonball (plural cannonballs)

1. (diving) The act of running and jumping in a flexed position into a swimming pool to create a large splash, mimicking the flight and shape of a cannonball.
   • The New Yorker, 30 August 2004, p.40
   • The cannonball could be called the S.U.V. of the pool — oversized, brash, hormonally hardwired.
2. (slang, figuratively) Something that moves fast.

   Meetings of the model train club always begin with the song "Wabash Cannonball".

3. (tennis) A served ball that travels with great speed and describes little or no arc in flight.

Derived terms

• cannonball run

See also

(diving):

• jack-knife
• bellyflop
• backflop
• rip entry

Translations

Verb

cannonball (third-person singular simple present cannonballs, present participle cannonballing, simple past and past participle cannonballed)

1. To jump/dive into water doing a cannonball landing.

   He cannonballed into the pool, drenching us all.

2. To careen; to move rapidly

Translations

Interjection

cannonball!

1. Yelled when jumping/diving into the water, doing a cannonball landing.