Minié ball en · NOUN
Etymology
Named after one of its developers, Claude-Étienne Minié.
Meanings
-
(historical) A muzzle-loading bullet with a hollow base, much used in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Minié ball, judging from everybody else's wounds around that time.
2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 112:Of course, by then the Rebs had shot me about thirty times. [...] He traced the minié ball scar with his finger.
2017, Rick Riordan, Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: The Ship of the Dead, Disney · Hyperion, published 2017, page 133:So intense was the firing that at one point just behind the southern lines an oak tree nearly two feet thick was cut down by minié balls.
1988, James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, Oxford, published 2004, page 730:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minié balls | Number=Plur | lexicographic |