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mes, a general term for all weapons and appliances used in war. All the battlements their ordnance fire. Shak. Then you may hear afar off the awful roar of his [Rufus Choate's] rifled ordnance. E. Ererett. Ordnance survey, the official survey of Great Britain and Ireland, conducted by the ordnance department.…

Articles used in charging firearms and ordnance of all kinds; as powder, balls, shot, shells, percussion caps, rockets, etc.

t from a bow. Broad arrow. (a) An arrow with a broad head. (b) A mark placed upon British ordnance and government stores, which bears a rude resemblance to a broad arrowhead.

Cannon; great guns; ordnance, including guns, mortars, howitzers, etc., with their equipment of carriages, balls, bombs, and shot of all kinds.

practices some mechanic art or craft; an artisan. [Obs.] How to build ships, and dreadful ordnance cast, Instruct the articles and reward their. Waller.

A piece of ordnance carrying a 12 pound shot. [Obs.]

oundation plate of heavy machinery, as of the steam engine; the bed plate. -- Base ring (Ordnance), a projecting band of metal around the breech, connected with the body of the gun by a concave molding. H. L. Scott.

A large piece of ordnance, so called from its supposed resemblance to the serpent of that name, or from its size. [Obs.]

A piece of heavy ordnance formerly used for throwing stones and other ponderous 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.

a gun in the bow for firing while chasing another vessel. Totten. - Bow piece, a piece of ordnance carried at the bow of a ship. -- On the bow (Naut.), on that part of the horizon within 45º on either side of the line ahead. Totten.

The cheek or side of an ordnance carriage.

A cannon ball. [Obs.] A ship before Greenwich . . . shot off her ordnance, one piece being charged with a bullet of stone. Stow.

A great gun; a piece of ordnance or artillery; a firearm for discharging heavy shot with great force.

That part of the bore of a piece of ordnance which holds the charge, esp. when of different diameter from the rest of the bore; -- formerly, in guns, made smaller than the bore, but now larger, esp. in breech-loading guns.

A revoling shot-proof turret for heavy ordnance.

A kind of ordnance, carrying a ball weighing from thirty to thirty-six pounds. Shak.

A kind of ordnance, carrying a ball weighing from nine to thirteen pounds.

against a mark, or towards a goal; to point; to aim; as, to direct an arrow or a piece of ordnance.

ifference between the thickness of the metal at the mouth and at the breech of a piece of ordnance. On account of the dispart, the line of aim or line of metal, which is in a plane passing through the axis of the gun, always makes a small angle with the axis. Eng. Cys.

In old ordnance, one of the handles above the trunnions by which the gun was lifted.