culverin

American  

[kuhl-ver-in] / ˈkʌl vər ɪn /

noun

1. medieval form of musket.

2. a kind of heavy cannon used in the 16th and 17th centuries.

---

culverin British  

/ ˈkʌlvərɪn /

noun

1. a long-range medium to heavy cannon used during the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries

2. a medieval musket

---

Etymology

Origin of culverin

1400–50; late Middle English < Middle French coulevrine < Latin colubrīna, feminine of colubrīnus colubrine

---

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

culverin

Arundel died at the age of 27 after his leg was shattered, in May 1435, by a shot from a primitive cannon, or culverin, at Gerberoy, France.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 11, 2026

This plan did not work; gunnery was so imprecise that no captain knew whether a given culverin would dismast his enemy, drop its ball a quarter-mile short, or explode and wreck his own ship.

From Time Magazine Archive

Tom Canninge was standing beside one of the grey iron culverin, waving down at Winston.

From Caribbee by Thomas Hoover

The vessel had swung round a little, so that her stern-chaser, a culverin twelve feet long, pointed full at the fort.

From With Drake on the Spanish Main by Herbert Strang

I wrote concerning it, by the patache; and will only state here the number of pieces—namely, eleven of cast iron and one bronze culverin, these being large pieces.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 29 of 55 Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century by Various

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

---