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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Pom-pom

Pompom \Pom"pom`\, Pom-pom \Pom"-pom`\, n. [Imitative.] (Mil.) originally, a Vickers-Maxim one-pounder automatic machine cannon using metallic ammunition fed from a lopped belt attached to the gun; -- popularly so called from its peculiar drumming sound in action. More recently, the term is applied mostly to automatic antiaircraft cannons.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
pom-pom

"Maxim automatic gun," 1899, of imitative origin, soldiers' slang from the Boer War. For the ornamental tuft, see pompom.

Wiktionary
pom-pom

n. 1 (context military English) A rapid-firing small-calibre canon used especially as an anti-aircraft gun 2 (alternative spelling of pompom English)

WordNet
pom-pom
  1. n. decoration consisting of a ball of tufted wool or silk; usually worn on a hat [syn: pompon]

  2. artillery designed to shoot upward at airplanes [syn: antiaircraft, antiaircraft gun, flak, flack, ack-ack, ack-ack gun]

Wikipedia
Pom-pom

A pom-pom – also spelled pom-pon, pompom or pompon – is a loose, fluffy, decorative ball or tuft of fibrous material. Pom-poms may come in many colors, sizes, and varieties and are made from a wide array of materials, including wool, cotton, paper, plastic, and occasionally feathers. Pom-poms are shaken by cheerleaders, pom or dance teams, and sports fans during spectator sports. Small decorative pom-poms may be attached to clothing; these are sometimes called toories or bobbles.

Pom-pom is derived from the French word pompon, which refers to a small decorative ball made of fabric or feathers.

Pom-pom (disambiguation)

A pom-pom is a loose, fluffy, decorative ball or tuft of fibrous material, most often seen shaken by cheerleaders or worn atop a hat.

Pom-pom, pompom, pom pom, pom-pon or pompon may also refer to:

Usage examples of "pom-pom".

Freke and Gere immediately shrank back, wagging their pom-poms furiously.

Waterspouts, twenty feet in diameter at their turbulent bases, streaked up whitely into the twilight, high above the truncated masts, hung there momentarily, then collapsed in drenching cascades on the bridge and boat-deck aft, soaking, saturating, every gunner on the pom-pom and in the open Oerlikon cockpits.

Not courage, but experience, is the strength you need to face it from behind the practically unprotected sights of an oerlikon or pom-pom.

Always the same extended advance, always the same rattle of Mausers and clatter of pom-poms from a ridge, always the same victorious soldiers on the barren crest, with a few crippled Boers before them and many crippled comrades behind.

Two field guns, one pom-pom, six maxims, fifty-six wagons and 140 prisoners were the fruits of that one magnificent charge, while fifty-four stricken Boers were picked up after the action.

For some hours the little party was hard pressed by the burghers, who had two field-pieces and a pom-pom.

On the 27th he reported seventeen more Boer casualties and 140 surrenders, while on the last day of the month he took another gun and two pom-poms.

No blame attaches to the gunners for this, as a hill intervened to screen the Boer artillery, which consisted of five big guns and two pom-poms.

Dirt fountained skyward along the enemy lines, and a spare team was galloped out to retrieve the pom-pom and the wounded.

For Leading Seaman Doyle, crouched miserably into the shelter of the for'ard funnel, watching the pinched agony, the perpetual shivering of his young midships pom-pom crew, it was pity.

There are a dozen of these, plus spare ammo crates, a dozen miniguns, crates of mines, grenade launchers *and* grenades, and two field-stripped artillery pieces, four-barrel pom-poms with twelve crates of ammo, everything from starbursts and smoke rounds through to CBW warheads.

His guns were firing over open sights, trying to suppress them, which meant that they had to more or less ignore the steady flow of men over the embankment and into the open groundalthough, thank the Spirit, they had knocked out the brace of pom-poms there.

At the Dog's Head Inn they ate pease porridge for breakfast, after which, at a cobbler's shop, Sir Pom-Pom was fitted with a pair of buskins.

She thought of Sir Pellinore, Twisk, King Casmir in his black robes, and poor Sir Pom-Pom with his stricken face.

A whippet tank crunched over the wreck and covered the group with its multiple pom-poms.