elder-gun

English

Alternative forms

  • elderne gun — used by Sir Thomas Overbury, a Warwickshire-bred man
  • eller-gun — found in the Cheshire dialect

Noun

elder-gun (plural elder-guns)

  1. 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.
    • 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.

References

  • C. T. Onions, A Shakespeare Glossary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911)
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