Enfield rifle

American  

noun

1. a single-shot, muzzleloading rifle, of .577 caliber, used by the British army in the Crimean War and in limited numbers by both sides in the American Civil War.

2. a bolt-action, breech-loading, .303-caliber magazine rifle introduced in Britain in 1902.

3. an American .30-caliber rifle used in World War I by U.S. troops, patterned after the British Enfield rifle.

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Enfield rifle British  

noun

1. a breech-loading bolt-action magazine rifle, usually .303 calibre, used by the British army until World War II and by other countries

2. a 19th-century muzzle-loading musket used by the British army

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Etymology

Origin of Enfield rifle

Named after Enfield, England, where it was first made

Example Sentences

In 1942, months after Japan attacked the British territories of Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaya and Burma, 19-year-old Horace was in uniform, shipping out for Asia with an Enfield rifle.

From Washington Post • Apr. 29, 2020

Almost every male over the age of 55 within the British Commonwealth is familiar with the Short Lee Enfield rifle, the standard infantry weapon for half a century or so.

From Golf Digest • Mar. 24, 2020

The bullet in the leg of Burial 1 was fired from an imported British Enfield rifle musket then commonly used by Confederates, said Bies, now the superintendent of the Manassas National Battlefield Park.

From Washington Post • Jun. 20, 2018

Apart from the annual camp, they did 40 drill nights a year, and each man had regular practice at marksmanship with his Lee Enfield rifle, known as the "Long Lee".

From BBC • Feb. 14, 2016

It has remodeled the British Enfield rifle so that it can be produced in quantities to take American ammunition and adopted two new types of machine guns, the Browning, heavy and light.

From Current History: A Monthly Magazine of the New York Times, May 1918 Vol. VIII, Part I, No. 2 by Various