fowling piece
1
9.9
- noun
- /ˈfaʊlɪŋ pis/
- Archaic
:
escopeta de caza
- a long fowling piece
Examples
-
"Sun!" He raised his eyes and his arms to the heavens with the fowling piece still in one hand.
Fiction book (1994) -
He held the fowling piece steady.
Fiction book (1994) -
And through the morning mists, I saw my stepfather, Henry Job, holding his fowling piece.
Fiction book (1994) -
We have already surrendered our fowling pieces, and long ago we abandoned our bows, arrows, and tomahawks.
Fiction book (1994) -
Propped against a big tulip tree stood a long-barreled fowling piece, a remnant from a previous century.
Fiction book (1997) -
Arthur finished loading his fowling piece before heading out to the marshes.
-
Have you fetched along your holiday fowling piece to use while hunting ducks?
-
Father and son carried their old fowling pieces as they walked through the fields.
Synonyms
1
7.1
A short-range gun that fires many small pellets
How Powerful
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a light shotgun for shooting wildfowl' is directly compositional from 'fowling' (relating to bird-hunting) + 'piece' (a firearm). Although 'piece' as slang for gun and 'fowling' are somewhat specialized, the modifier+noun structure makes the referent predictable, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the meaning.
Etymology
Fowling piece comes from a simple picture: a light gun used for shooting wild 'birds'. The word fowling means hunting 'fowl' or 'birds', and piece was once a common word for a 'gun', so the name came to mean a small shotgun for wildfowl.