snaphance

English

Etymology

Dutch snaphaan (“a gun”), originally, the snapping cock of a gun. See snap and hen.

Noun

snaphance (plural snaphances)

1. A spring lock for discharging a firearm.
2. The firearm to which it is attached.
3. (obsolete) A trifling or second-rate thing or person.
   • 1539 April 9, Cuthbert Tunstall, A Sermon of Cuthbert Tonstall, Bishop of Durham, Preached on Palm Sunday, 1539, before King Henry VIII. […]‎^[1], London: […] [J. Compton, […]] for T[homas] Rodd, […], published 1823, →OCLC:

     [T]o make this realme a praye to al venturers, al ſpoylers, all ſnaphanſes, all forlornehopes, all cormerauntes, all reuenours of the worlde, that wyll inuade this realme, is to ſaye, thou poſſeſſyoner of any landes of this realme, of what degree ſo euer thou be, fro the higheſt to the loweſt, ſhalte be ſlayne and deſtroyed, and thy landes taken frome the by thoſe that wyl haue al for them ſelfes.

4. (obsolete) A snappish retort.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “snaphance”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)