ordnance
/ˈɔːdnəns
/noun [mass noun]
1Mounted guns; artillery: the gun was a brand new piece of ordnance...
- The term is, however, also correctly applied to heavy rifled ordnance of the howitzer class used for coastal defence by some nations, though few ever saw use in 1939-45.
- Over the next fifteen years, he invented and developed bronze boat guns, heavy smoothbore shell guns, and rifled ordnance.
- Following transition to the line around the turn of the century, Reeves continued his brilliant career, tackling the complex problems of naval gunnery, torpedoes, and ordnance.
Synonyms
guns, cannon, artillery, weapons, arms, munitions, military supplies, materiel
1.1US Munitions: unexploded ordnance...
- The first wave of troops crossed the bridge, and soon the air on the far side was thick with ordnance - artillery shells, mortars, bullets.
- Artillery generally offers greater responsiveness and persistence, while air-delivered ordnance is usually more accurate and lethal.
- The total amounted to more than 180,000 pieces of ordnance.
2A branch of government service dealing especially with military stores and materials: [as modifier]: the ordnance corps...
- Charlie Q. Cutshaw served as a U.S. Army infantry, ordnance, and military intelligence officer.
- This selection is made from a list of hundreds of active-duty personnel of the Navy and Marine Corps aviation ordnance community.
- That was small consolation for an ordnance department that had to supply ammunition to the frontlines in more than a dozen different calibers.
Origin
Late Middle English: variant of ordinance.
- Knight, John S.
- knightlike
- knightliness
- knightly
- knight marshal
- knight of the road
- knight of the shire
- Knightsbridge
- knight service
- Knights Hospitaller
- Knights Templar
- kniphofia
- knish
- knit
- knitbone
- knitter
- knitting
- knitting machine
- knitting needle
- knitwear
- blocker
- block grant
- blockhead
- blockheaded
- block heater