organ gun

English

WOTD – 27 July 2024

Etymology

An organ gun illustrated in Konrad Keyser’s work Bellifortis, a 15th-century manual of military technology.

The machine infernale or infernal machine, a homemade 25-barrel organ gun built by Giuseppe Marco Fieschi and used in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate King Louis Philippe I of France on 28 July 1835. The weapon is now displayed at the Musée des Archives Nationales in Paris.

From organ +‎ gun. The multiple barrels of the device were thought to resemble the pipes of a pipe organ.^[1]

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌɔːɡ(ə)n ˈɡʌn/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌɔɹɡ(ə)n ˈɡʌn/
• Rhymes: -ʌn
• Hyphenation: or‧gan gun

Noun

organ gun (plural organ guns)

1. (firearms, historical) A large, portable firearm normally supported by wheels, in which bullets may be fired from a row of several tubes in succession; it was chiefly used from the 14th to the 17th century.

   Synonyms: infernal machine, mitrailleur, rabauld, ribauldequin, ribaudkin, ribault

   • 1911, William Balck, “VI. Machine Guns”, in Tactics, Volume 1: Introduction and Formal Tactics of Infantry‎, page 259:

     The attempts to re-invest the artillery with its one-time superiority were directed in two channels: one aimed at perfecting shrapnel, which had been rather neglected up to this time (England, Prussia, Austria), while the other resurrected the mediaeval idea of the "barrel-organ gun," with a view of assembling a number of rifle barrels and of combining thereby the accuracy of the small arm with the moral effect of canister.

Hypernyms

• volley gun

Hyponyms

• Nordenfelt gun

Translations

portable firearm in which bullets may be fired from a row of several tubes in succession

Belarusian: арга́н (arhán), сарока (saróka) Breton: arm ograoù, ribauldequin Chinese: Mandarin: 風琴炮／风琴炮 (fēngqínpào) Danish: orgelbøsse, ribauldequin Dutch: ribaudequin Finnish: tuiskupyssy, urkupyssy (fi) French: ribaudequin (fr) m Georgian: ორგანი (ka) (organi) German: Orgelgeschütz n, Ribauldequin f Hebrew: ריבודקן Italian: organo (it) m, ribadocchino m Japanese: オルガン砲 (オルガンほう, orugan hō) Korean: 리볼데퀸 (riboldekwin) Lombard: orghen (lmo) m Marathi: ऑर्गन बंदूक f (ŏrgan bandūk) Norwegian: Bokmål: orgelbøsse Persian: ریباولدکویین Picard: ribaudkin m Polish: organki Russian: рибадекин (ribadekin) Spanish: ribadoquín m, cañón de órgano m Swedish: orgelbössa, salvbössa Ukrainian: органна гарма́та f (orhanna harmáta), рибадекін (rybadekin) West Frisian: oargelkanon, ribaudequin

References

1. “organ gun, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2023.

Further reading

• ribauldequin on Wikipedia.Wikipedia