Gump
(Gump) n. [Cf. Sw. & Dan. gump buttocks, rump, Icel. gumpr.] A dolt; a dunce. [Low.] Holloway.
Gumption
(Gump"tion) n. [OE. gom, gome, attention; akin to AS. geómian, gyman, to regard, observe,
gyme care, OS. gomean to heed, Goth. gaumjan to see, notice.]
1. Capacity; shrewdness; common sense. [Colloq.]
One does not have gumption till one has been properly cheated.
Lord Lytton. 2. (Paint.) (a) The art of preparing colors. Sir W. Scott.
(b) Megilp. Fairholt.
Gun
(Gun) n. [OE. gonne, gunne; of uncertain origin; cf. Ir., Gael., & LL. gunna, W. gum; possibly (like
cannon) fr. L. canna reed, tube; or abbreviated fr. OF. mangonnel, E. mangonel, a machine for hurling
stones.]
1. A weapon which throws or propels a missile to a distance; any firearm or instrument for throwing projectiles
by the explosion of gunpowder, consisting of a tube or barrel closed at one end, in which the projectile
is placed, with an explosive charge behind, which is ignited by various means. Muskets, rifles, carbines,
and fowling pieces are smaller guns, for hand use, and are called small arms. Larger guns are called
cannon, ordnance, fieldpieces, carronades, howitzers, etc. See these terms in the Vocabulary.
As swift as a pellet out of a gunne
When fire is in the powder runne.
Chaucer.
The word gun was in use in England for an engine to cast a thing from a man long before there was
any gunpowder found out.
Selden. 2. (Mil.) A piece of heavy ordnance; in a restricted sense, a cannon.
3. pl. (Naut.) Violent blasts of wind.
Guns are classified, according to their construction or manner of loading as rifled or smoothbore, breech-
loading or muzzle-loading, cast or built-up guns; or according to their use, as field, mountain, prairie,
seacoast, and siege guns.
Armstrong gun, a wrought iron breech-loading cannon named after its English inventor, Sir William
Armstrong. — Great gun, a piece of heavy ordnance; hence a person superior in any way. — Gun
barrel, the barrel or tube of a gun. — Gun carriage, the carriage on which a gun is mounted or moved.
— Gun cotton (Chem.), a general name for a series of explosive nitric ethers of cellulose, obtained
by steeping cotton in nitric and sulphuric acids. Although there are formed substances containing nitric
acid radicals, yet the results exactly resemble ordinary cotton in appearance. It burns without ash, with
explosion if confined, but quietly and harmlessly if free and open, and in small quantity. Specifically, the
