blunderbuss means an old style of muzzleloading firearm and early form of shotgun with a distinctive short, large caliber barrel that is flared at the muzzle, therefore able to fire scattered quantities of nails, stones, shot, etc. at short range. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 89 out of 100.
blunderbuss is pronounced /ˈblʌn.dəˌbʌs/.
Why “blunderbuss” is a great word
BLUNDERBUSS — [Noun] An obsolete muzzleloading firearm with a short, flared muzzle, designed to scatter shot indiscriminately at close quarters. Its name comes from the Dutch donderbus (literally "thunder gun"), from donder ("thunder") and bus ("gun, tube"), later altered under the influence of the English word blunder; it first thundered into the language in the 1650s. Unlike a musket, engineered for distant, aimed precision, or a blunder, a purely human error of judgment, the blunderbuss is an engine of deliberate, chaotic force. It is the coach-guard's bell-mouthed roar in a moonlit lane, the tavern-keeper's argument loaded with nails, the farmer's last resort against the shadow in the barn—a brutal solution for when the world has closed in too tight, and the only correct answer is a broad and thunderous negation.
noun
- An old style of muzzleloading firearm and early form of shotgun with a distinctive short, large caliber barrel that is flared at the muzzle, therefore able to fire scattered quantities of nails, stones, shot, etc. at short range.“We fired the blunderbuss several times by way of salute, and soon after landed at the bank near the village of the Mahahas, or Shoe Indians, and were received by a crowd of people, who came to welcome our return.”
verb
- To shoot with a blunderbuss.