Gun language?

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Dingoboyx

New member
Ok, I'm in the mood to be stoopid..... but where did our gun terminology come from?

Like, why are bullets called 'rounds'? they aren't round? Is it left over from muzzle loader days? That dude that showed the thread with the square bullet muzzle loader.... are they rounds? or squares?

Magazines? I thought they were books?

Clips? they dont clip on anything, bullets slide onto them?

Where on earth did the word 'ammunition' come from?

Breach? I thought if you breach something, you get around it, or break it, defeat it (breach security)?

Who thought of calling the bit of wood on the end of a boomstick a 'stock'?

Why are guns referred to as 'arms'?

Sear?? your gun has a sear, but you cant see it?

Some parts of guns (firearms) are named accordingly.... hammer, trigger, ram rod, barrel (hmmmm?), butt, grips, firing pin, transfer bar..... You know what these are, because that is their function (or they look like what their name is)

What are your ideas why some of the oddly named things being called what they are, are?

What are some of the weird names for gun parts that you know or have heard of?
 
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drail

Moderator
Part of this is because our language is built up from other languages. It must have been interesting trying to communicate in the 1700s in America. Also "breach" is spelled breech. Different word.
 
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Bud Helms

Senior Member
Magazine ...

Etymology: Middle French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic makhāzin, plural of makhzan storehouse
Date:1583

Ammunition ...

Etymology: Obsolete French amunition, from Middle French, alteration of munition
Date: 1607

Breach (also breech) ...

Etymology: Middle English breche, from Old English brǣc act of breaking; akin to Old English brecan to break
Date: before 12th century

Stock ...

1 a archaic : stump b archaic : a log or block of wood c (1)archaic : something without life or consciousness (2): a dull, stupid, or lifeless person

2: a supporting framework or structure: as a plural : the frame or timbers holding a ship during construction b plural : a device for publicly punishing offenders consisting of a wooden frame with holes in which the feet or feet and hands can be locked c (1): the wooden part by which a shoulder arm is held during firing (2): the butt of an implement (as a whip or fishing rod) (3): bitstock, brace d: a long beam on a field gun forming the third support point in firing

Sear ...

Etymology: probably from Middle French serre grasp, from serrer to press, grasp, from Old French, from Late Latin serare to bolt, latch, from Latin sera bar for fastening a door
Date: 1596

Etc., etc., etc. ...

Merriam-Webster is your friend. Dogpile is your friend. The whole web is your friend.

So, Dingoboyx, you bored so you come here to send us scurrying around looking things up for you?

There's also a list of acronyms and firearms related terms here on TFL, but you'll have to find it for your self. ;)
 
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Chipperman

New member
Breach makes sense because you are, in effect, breaking the gun in half to load it. Compare it with muzzle-loading, where the back half of the gun is basically sealed.
 
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Bud Helms

Senior Member
That's why you have to load it from the front end. :rolleyes: Because the breech is plugged. I think that's Chipperman's point. Comparing the two explain's it. (to some of us :D )
 
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grymster2007

New member
Comparing the two explain's it. (to some of us :D )
Click to expand...
Yeah, well not all of us are walking encyclopedias either. :p People used to say I was. I know I'm not, because there is a word for it, but I can't remember it. :)
 
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Bud Helms

Senior Member
Being a walking encyclopedia has nothing to do with it. It's a matter of "gleaning the meaning" from the way some people write here. I'm not the most patient reader, but I don't think chipperman would take a complete opposite construction and use it as an example of the other ... unless I completely mistook his meaning.

Well that's the way I took it. He'll have to explain what he meant if he chooses to do so. In the meantime, try not to take offense where it wasn't meant.
 
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Chipperman

New member
Thanks, Bud.

Just shows that you should not enter into a thread about Semantics unless you are prepared to have your own words analyzed. ;)
 
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Bud Helms

Senior Member
Yes, except I don't think the analysis was the plan here, but it sure is a distraction, not caused by you, I might add. It seems we (grymster and I) took different meanings from your post.

You gonna tell us which crystal ball was working right? :)

Grymster has already PM'd me and told me I was being too sensitive about his sensitivities. :D
 
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SDC

New member
As said above, a lot of these terms ended up being "borrowed" from other languages, so they came to us with no understanding of their origin; an example of this would be "stock", which means "stick" in German. Since the original "stocks" on guns were simply a piece of wood that you tucked under your arm to point, that's how the word came to be associated with guns.
"clip" - in its proper meaning, a "clip" is just a piece of metal that holds a group of cartridges together in a group, so that group of cartridges can be loaded into a firearm or magazine easily; it's a "clip" because it "clips" cartridges together, in the same way that a staple holds a group of pages together. Because of sloppy usage, this has also been applied to "magazines", which has been known to drive grown men who care about proper terminology to drink.
"breech" - in firearms is the "base" of a firearm, in that it's what makes the firearm work; it's fundamental to its operation ("breach" is a separate word, meaning to pierce or to tear open).
"arms" - all weapons are arms, because they extend your reach beyond the tips of your fingers, and "firearms" are an extension of this because they operate through combustion.
"sear" is a term borrowed from watchmaking, as watchmakers were among the group who originally designed and repaired firearms "locks" (the hammer/cock/trigger, mainspring/etc. that make a firearm work; these were known as "locks" because they required close attention to small parts that fitted together very closely, in the same way that a lock operates. "Seer" (a fortune-teller or "psychic") is a completely different word entirely, having to do with the belief that these charlatans claimed to be able to "see the future".
 
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44 AMP

Staff
Want to have real fun? Look at the names in other languages

For example, in German, the barrel is "Lauf" (or some variation), very similar to the verb laufen which is to run. Probably because the bullet runs down the barrel?

And the "hammer" is "Hahn", which is the word used for chicken/rooster, or as we used to say in English a "cock". What part do you use to cock the gun, anyway?

Barrel probably comes from the earliest guns, primative cannons whose gun tubes were bound with metal hoops, like barrels.

"Frizzen" I don't have a clue, but maybe something to do with the sound and shower of sparks when you fire it?
 
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Chipperman

New member
Interesting read here:
http://www.geocities.com/old_lead/oops.htm

As for the term ‘frizzen,’ there simply was no such word in the 18th-century; in fact I could not find ‘frizzen’ listed in ANY dictionary, new or old, including the huge, multi-volume Oxford Dictionary of the English Language. The best guess I have heard so far is that this anachronistic term dates from the late 19th or early 20th-century and is a corruption of the Dutch or Germanic word ‘frizzel’ or ‘furison,’ both of which were apparently first used to described the hammer of a flintlock in 1892.
Click to expand...
 
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Capt_Vin

New member
I get a kick out of the slang or street terms for guns, like
1) cap (as in "I'm gonna bust a cap in your a**")
2) Piece (as in "I'm carrying a piece")
3) Rod (as in "I'm packing a rod in my belt")
ect.
How bout the origin of these terms (besides the street)
 
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44 AMP

Staff
some guesses

Cap -from the percussion cap used to fire the gun. Modern - primer "bust a cap" = pop a primer = shoot

Piece - piece of ordnance. Descriptive term for any military gun, from small arms to battleship guns, they are all ordnance.

Rod - heh, heh, heh....maybe because barrels are long and round?
 
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