ordnance
Americannoun
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cannon or artillery.
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military weapons with their equipment, ammunition, etc.
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the branch of an army that procures, stores, and issues, weapons, munitions, and combat vehicles and maintains arsenals for their development and testing.
noun
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cannon or artillery
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military supplies; munitions
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a department of an army or government dealing with military supplies
Etymology
Origin of ordnance
First recorded in 1620–30; syncopated variant of ordinance
Explanation
Ordnance is another word for military supplies, like guns, rockets, or armor. When a country is at war, it needs a lot of ordnance. The average person has probably never heard of ordnance. In fact, an ordinary person would have some explaining to do if they had ordnance, because it refers to military supplies. The word ordinance for “command” lost an i in the 1500’s and became ordnance, meaning “military materials.” Both words go with war — a command to shoot requires ordnance, or something to shoot with. Ordnance helps soldiers fight and protect them. You can’t go to war without ordnance.
Vocabulary lists containing ordnance
The Things They Carried
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All the Light We Cannot See
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Life of Pi
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
An Explosive Ordnance Disposal team arrived from Catterick Garrison and confirmed it was indeed a bomb from World War Two but, thinking it was an isolated find, renovations resumed the next day.
From BBC • Aug. 15, 2025
These bombers can carry the 30,000-pound GBU-57 “Massive Ordnance Penetrator” bunker buster, a weapon experts say is uniquely designed to penetrate underground nuclear facilities like Iran’s Fordow site.
From Salon • Jun. 21, 2025
Only the U.S. has the weapons that can do this—the 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator, carried by a B-2 bomber.
From Slate • Jun. 16, 2025
They're known as MOP – the precision-guided 30,000lb Massive Ordnance Penetrator.
From BBC • Jun. 16, 2025
Last summer on sunny days I cycled as far as Ordnance Survey Map 150'd let me.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
