Minié ball

English

Some Minié balls

Etymology

Named after one of its developers, Claude-Étienne Minié.

Noun

Minié ball (plural Minié balls)

1. (historical) A muzzle-loading bullet with a hollow base, much used in the second half of the nineteenth century.
   • 1988, James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, Oxford, published 2004, page 730:

     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.

   • 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 112:

     Minié ball, judging from everybody else's wounds around that time.

Related terms

• Minié rifle