blunderbuss

[bluhn-der-buhs]

noun

1. a short musket of wide bore with expanded muzzle to scatter shot, bullets, or slugs at close range.

2. an insensitive, blundering person.

blunderbuss

/ ˈblʌndəˌbʌs /

noun

1. an obsolete short musket with large bore and flared muzzle, used to scatter shot at short range

2. informal,  a clumsy unsubtle person

Word History and Origins

Origin of blunderbuss¹

1645–55; < Dutch donderbus (equivalent to donder thunder + bus gun, box ¹ ) with donder replaced by blunder. See harquebus

Word History and Origins

Origin of blunderbuss¹

C17: changed (through the influence of _blunder ) from Dutch donderbus ; from donder _thunder + obsolete bus gun

Example Sentences

They are instead using a blunderbuss to blast the whole system by targeting foreign students for deportation and defunding the research that will lead to the breakthroughs of the future.

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But I find it hard to unequivocally pick who’s right and wrong when the choices are between Hamas, a terrorist organization, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose blunderbuss response to the Oct.

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Unfortunately, these mouthwashes are a blunderbuss approach to oral health, as they indiscriminately remove both good and bad bacteria and increase oral acidity, which can cause disease.

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Whereas Smith’s Jan. 6 indictment was an arrow aimed straight at Trump, Willis’ is a blunderbuss.

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It’s as if the nation’s founders in writing the 2nd Amendment’s right to bear arms in 1789 had specified the maximum muzzle size of a blunderbuss or fire power of a musket.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• blunderer www.thesaurus.com
• bumbler www.thesaurus.com
• klutz 
• lummox