Meaning of small arm | Babel Free

Definitions

A firearm designed to be carried and fired by a single person, and often held in the hand.

Examples

“[…] about break of day, we heard from the Town a small Arm discharged, and after that a Drum beating a travailler.”

“If any Man shall offer to run away, or keep any Secret from the Company, he shall be marroon’d, with one Bottle of Powder, one Bottle of Water, one small Arm, and Shot.”

““Men are all well drilled, sir,” continued the captain, “and have regular small-arm practice […]””

“1904, Joseph Conrad, Nostromo, New York and London: Harper, Part 3, Chapter 10, p. 541, […] the first of Barrios’s transports, one of our own ships at that, steamed right in, and, ranging close alongside, opened a small-arm fire without as much preliminaries as a hail.”

CEFR level