| 词汇 | gun |
| 词源 | gun. Gun doesn’t derive from the echo of its sound, as has been suggested. Gunnr and hildr meant “war” and “battle” in Icelandic, so the Scandinavian female name Gunhildr was a fa- vorite among missile-throwers in the Middle Ages as a pet name for their ballistic devices. It is also possible that some anonymous soldier named a specific ballista Gunhildr for his sweetheart, the name gaining currency in this way. Whatever the case, we find Gundhildr recorded before 1309 in England, where it was shortened to gunne, and then gun, the last desig- nation transferred to firearms after the cannon was invented. A “large ballista called Lady Gunhilda,” a mechanized catapult used to hurl huge stones and balls of fire at troops, is listed in a weapons inventory made at Windsor Castle in 1330. This par- ticular ballista, its name derived from the Scandinavian, must have been around for a number of years and may even have been the particular Gunhilda abbreviated to gunne some years before. |
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