Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: BROWN BESS |
BROWN BESS1. The old regulation flintlock smoothbore musket, with bronzed barrel, formerly used in the British army. |
| Domain | Definition |
Literature | Brown Bess means brown barrel. The barrels were browned to keep them from rusting. (Dutch, bus, a gun-barrel; Low German, büsse; Swedish, byssa. Our arquebus, blunderbuss.) In 1808 a process of browning was introduced, but this has, of course, nothing to do with the distinctive epithet. Probably Bess is a companion word to Bill. (See below.). Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Slang in 1811 | BROWN BESS. A soldier's firelock. To hug brown Bess; to carry a firelock, or serve as a private soldier. Source: 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The origin of the name is unknown. It perhaps derives from the German büchse, for gun, or the Dutch bus for barrel (hence blunderbuss) or maybe from the colour of the walnut woodwork.
Stress-bearing parts such as the barrel, lockwork, ramrod and sling-swivels were made of iron; the other parts such as the butt plate, trigger guard and ramrod pipe were brass. It weighed around 10 pounds. It could be fitted with a 17-inch triangular cross-section bayonet.
It went through numerous variations and modifications over its long history. The first common version was the Long Land Pattern of 1730, 62 inches long with a 49 inch barrel. It was eventually discovered that shortening the barrel did not detract from its accuracy (which was extremely poor anyway), but was easier for soldiers to manage. This resulted in the Militia (or Marine) Pattern of 1756 and the Short Land Pattern of 1768, both of which had a 42 inch barrel.
A cheaper version with a 39 inch barrel was manufactured for the British East India Company, and eventually adopted by the British Army in 1790 as the India Pattern.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Brown Bess."
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Arms | Small arms; musket, musketry, firelock, fowling piece, rifle, fusil, caliver, carbine, blunderbuss, musketoon, Brown Bess, matchlock, harquebuss, arquebus, haguebut; pistol, postolet; petronel; small bore; breach-loader, muzzle-loader; revolver, repeater; Minis rifle, Enfield rifle, Flobert rifle, Westley Richards rifle, Snider rifle, Martini-Henry rifle, Lee-Metford rifle, Lee-Enfield rifle, Mauser rifle, magazine rifle; needle gun, chassepot; wind gun, air gun; automatic gun, automatic pistol; escopet, escopette, gunflint, gun-lock; hackbut, shooter, shooting iron , six-shooter, shotgun; Uzzi, assault rifle, KalashnikoVerb: |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: BROWN BESS |
| Specialty definitions using "BROWN BESS": BESS. (references) |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | From brown Bess to the Chicago typewriter. Part of the collection of small arms at an eastern armory, where a long tradition of gun-making is being brought to bear in the war program. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
brown bess | 26 |
brown bess musket | 14 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | Pseudomonas solanacearum, Raja miraletus, Rattus norvegicus, RM:ratto d.chiaviche. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "b-b-e-n-o-r-s-s-w" | |
-1 letter: swobbers. | |
-2 letters: besnows, browses, sobbers, swobber, worsens. | |
-3 letters: besnow, boners, bowers, bowses, broses, browns, browse, owners, resown, resows, rowens, senors, sensor, serows, snores, sobber, sobers, sowens, sowers, worsen, worses. | |
-4 letters: boner, bones, bores, borne, bower, bowse, brens, brews, brose, brown, brows, ebons, enows, noses, owner, owsen, resow, rewon, robes, roses, rowen, senor, serow, snobs. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)42 52 4F 57 4E 42 45 53 53 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01000010 01010010 01001111 01010111 01001110 00100000 01000010 01000101 01010011 01010011 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)B R O W N   B E S S |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0042 0052 004F 0057 004E 0042 0045 0053 0053 |
Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)3652495748236395353 |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Images: Photo Album 4. Expressions: Internet | 5. Translations: Ancient 6. Anagrams 7. Orthography 8. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
