pepperbox

Definitions

1. A pepper shaker.
2. A repeating firearm with three or more barrels grouped around a central axis.
3. A buttress at one side of the court in the game of fives.
4. A tower capped by a cupola, looking similar to a giant pepper shaker.
5. Any of the buildings of the Royal Academy and National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, London, having cupolas on the roof.
   in-plural, slang

Equivalents

Examples

“She had her knees up, resting her wrists on them; the pepperbox muzzle of a flechette pistol emerged from her hands.”

“Large, stately, and dark was its [the château's] outline against the dusky night-sky; there were pepper-boxes and tourelles and what-not fantastically going up into the dim starlight.”

“I also remember⟳ the old Royal Mews that stood on the site of the present⟳ trumpery National Gallery, with its too suggestive pepper-boxes; […]”

“Its architect, Wilkins, had the misfortune to be chosen to erect our much-abused National Gallery building, with its condemned "pepper-boxes" of cupolas; […]”

CEFR level