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missiles. It was the earliest kind of cannon. They planted in divers places twelve great bombards, wherewith they threw huge stones into the air, which, falling down into the city, might break down the houses. Knolles.

One who used or managed a bombard; an artilleryman; a gunner. [Archaic]

One who carried liquor or beer in a can or bombard. [Obs.] They . . . made room for a bombardman that brought bouge for a country lady. B. Jonson.

An attack upon a fortress or fortified town, with shells, hot shot, rockets, etc.; the act of throwing bombs and shot into a town or fortified place.

instrument of the oboe or bassoon family; thence, a bass reed stop on the organ. The name bombardon is now given to a brass instrument, the lowest of the saxhorns, in tone resembling the ophicleide. Grove.

ll ketch or vessel, very strongly built, on which mortars are mounted to be used in naval bombardments; -- called also mortar vessel. -- Bomb lance, a lance or harpoon with an explosive head, used in whale fishing. -- Volcanic bomb, a mass of lava of a spherical or pear shape. "I noticed volcanic bombs." Darwin.…

Bouche (see Bouche, 2); food and drink; provisions. [Obs.] [They] made room for a bombardman that brought bouge for a country lady or two, that fainted . . . with fasting. B. Jonson .

See Bombard. [Obs.]

p range as the stringed double bass; as, the contrabass ophicleide; the cotrabass tuba or bombardon.

battery erected on rafts or the hulls of ships, chiefly for the defense of a coast or the bombardment of a place. -- Floating bridge. (a) A bridge consisting of rafts or timber, with a floor of plank, supported wholly by the water; a bateau bridge. See Bateau. (b) (Mil.) A kind of double bridge, the upper one projecti…

or vessel (Naut.), a boat strongly built and adapted to carrying a mortar or mortars for bombarding; a bomb ketch. -- Mortar piece, a mortar. [Obs.] Shak.

r use in war, invented by Sir William Congreve. It may be used either in the field or for bombardment; in the former case, it is armed with shells or case shot; in the latter, with a combustible material inclosed in a metallic case, which is inextinguishable when kindled, and scatters its fire on every side.…

To throw shells or bombs upon or into; to bombard; as, to shell a town. To shell out, to distribute freely; to bring out or pay, as money. [Colloq.]

cent screen and viewed with magnifying lenses. The tiny flashes produced by the continual bombardment of the screen by the a rays are thus rendered visible. -- Spin*thar`i*scop"ic (#), a.