muzzle loader
1
9.8
- noun
- /ˈmʌzəl ˈloʊdər/
- Specialized
:
arma de carga por la boca
- I know many folks are grabbing their camo, throwing on extra layers, and getting up well before dawn to head into the woods with a bow or muzzle-loader, as well as oiling their guns in advance of rifle season.
Examples
-
Cherum had forty breech and twenty muzzle loaders in action on 14 January when his warriors repulsed two army attacks.
Academic text (1998) -
During the historical reenactment, participants used a muzzle-loader to illustrate how firearms were loaded in the 18th century.
-
Can you, good Republican that you are, load and fire a muzzle-loader?
Blog text (21) -
"I wouldn't send you out there if we still carried our old muzzle-loaders.
Fiction book (1992) -
Dynamite fuse, black powder, you know, for muzzle-loaders.
-
Forty yards through timber with an open sight, side lock muzzle-loader.
Blog text (13) -
A bit off topic, but I have, on several occasions, asked the owners of an ancient muzzle loader if it was loaded?
Blog text (11) -
It would be a nasty butcher's bill to pay for certain if we were using muzzle-loaders instead.
Fiction book (1992) -
An experienced hunter demonstrated how to properly load a muzzle-loader before the big game season.
-
To accurately represent the time period, the film required several actors to handle a muzzle-loader during the battle scenes.
Synonyms
2
8.9
A gun that you load from the open front of the barrel
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense 'an old firearm loaded from the open end of the barrel' is directly compositional from 'muzzle' (the barrel end) + 'loader' (one who loads), yielding a regular noun-noun compound meaning a gun loaded at the muzzle. This follows common, transparent compounding patterns found cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents should be able to infer the meaning.
Etymology
Muzzle loader comes from how the gun was filled: the word muzzle means the open front of the barrel and loader means the thing that puts the powder and ball in, so the gun was 'loaded' from the front by pouring powder and pushing the ball down with a long rod. That's why muzzle loader refers to an old gun you load through the front of the barrel.