elder-gun
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Alternative forms
- elderne gun — used by Sir Thomas Overbury, a Warwickshire-bred man
- eller-gun — found in the Cheshire dialect
Noun
- A popgun made of a hollowed shoot of elder, i.e. a harmless weapon.
- c. 1599, William Shakespeare, Henry V, line 2046 (Quarto 1, 1600):
- [...] tis a great displeasure
That an elder gun, can do against a cannon,
Or a subiect against a monarke.
- [...] tis a great displeasure
- c. 1599, William Shakespeare, Henry V, line 2046 (First Folio, 1623):
- [...] that's a perillous shot out of an Elder Gunne, that a poore and a priuate displeasure can doe against a Monarch.
- c. 1599, William Shakespeare, Henry V, line 2046 (Quarto 1, 1600):
References
- C. T. Onions, A Shakespeare Glossary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911)
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