Crossword clues for caliber
caliber
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Caliber \Cal"i*ber\, Calibre \Cal"ibre\, n. [F. calibre, perh. fr. L. qualibra of what pound, of what weight; hence, of what size, applied first to a ball or bullet; cf. also Ar. q[=a]lib model, mold. Cf. Calipers, Calivere.]
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(Gunnery) The diameter of the bore, as a cannon or other firearm, or of any tube; or the weight or size of the projectile which a firearm will carry; as, an 8 inch gun, a 12-pounder, a 44 caliber.
The caliber of empty tubes.
--Reid.A battery composed of three guns of small caliber.
--Prescott.Note: The caliber of firearms is expressed in various ways. Cannon are often designated by the weight of a solid spherical shot that will fit the bore; as, a 12-pounder; pieces of ordnance that project shell or hollow shot are designated by the diameter of their bore; as, a 12 inch mortar or a 14 inch shell gun; small arms are designated by hundredths of an inch expressed decimally; as, a rifle of .44 inch caliber.
The diameter of round or cylindrical body, as of a bullet or column.
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Fig.: Capacity or compass of mind.
--Burke.Caliber compasses. See Calipers.
Caliber rule, a gunner's calipers, an instrument having two scales arranged to determine a ball's weight from its diameter, and conversely.
A ship's caliber, the weight of her armament.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1560s, "degree of merit or importance," a figurative use from Middle French calibre (late 15c.), apparently ultimately from Arabic qalib "a mold for casting." Arabic also used the word in the sense "mold for casting bullets," which is the oldest literal meaning in English. Meaning "inside diameter of a gun barrel" is attested from 1580s. Barnhart remarks that Spanish calibre, Italian calibro "appear too late to act as intermediate forms" between the Arabic word and the French.
Wiktionary
n. (standard spelling of calibre from=American spelling English)
WordNet
Wikipedia
In guns, particularly firearms, caliber or calibre is the approximate internal diameter of the barrel, or the diameter of the projectile it fires, in hundredths or sometimes thousandths of an inch. For example, a 45 caliber firearm has a barrel diameter of .45 of an inch. Barrel diameters can also be expressed using metric dimensions, as in "9mm pistol." When the barrel diameter is given in inches, the abbreviation "cal" (for "caliber") can be used. For example, a small-bore rifle with a diameter of 0.22 inches can be referred to as .22 or a .22 cal; however, the decimal point is generally dropped when spoken, making it a "twenty-two caliber" or a "two-two caliber rifle".
In a rifled barrel, the distance is measured between opposing lands or grooves; groove measurements are common in cartridge designations originating in the United States, while land measurements are more common elsewhere. Good performance requires a bullet to closely match the groove diameter of a barrel to ensure a good seal.
While modern cartridges and cartridge firearms are generally referred to by the cartridge name, they are still lumped together based on bore diameter. For example, a firearm might be described as a "30 caliber rifle", which could be any of a wide range of cartridges using a roughly .30-in projectile; or a "22 rimfire", referring to any rimfire cartridge using a 22-cal projectile.
Firearm calibers outside the range of 17 to 50 (4.5 to 12.7 mm) exist, but are rarely encountered. Wildcat cartridges, for example, can be found in 10, 12, and 14 cal (2.5, 3.0, and 3.6 mm), typically used for short-range varmint hunting, where the high-velocity, lightweight bullets provide devastating terminal ballistics with little risk of ricochet. Larger calibers, such as .577, .585, .600, .700, and .729 (14.7, 14.9, 15.2, 17.8, & 18.5 mm) are generally found in proprietary cartridges chambered in express rifles or similar guns intended for use on dangerous game. The .950 JDJ is the only known cartridge beyond 79 caliber used in a rifle.
Referring to artillery, "caliber" is used to describe the barrel length as multiples of the bore diameter. A "5-inch 50 calibre" gun has a bore diameter of 5 in (12.7 cm) and a barrel length of 50 times 5 in = 250 in (6.35 m). The main guns of the USS Missouri (Iowa Class Battleship) are 16" 50 caliber.
Caliber, in comics, may refer to:
- Caliber Comics, an American comic book publisher
- Caliber (Radical Comics), a comic book limited series from Radical Comics
- Caliber (Marvel Comics), a Marvel Comics supervillain and enemy of Alpha Flight
It may also refer to:
- Calibre (comics), an Azteca Publications character
Caliber is a comic book published by Radical Comics. Caliber was written by Sam Sarker and illustrated by Garrie Gastonny. It was published in a miniseries comic book format.
In artillery, caliber or calibre is the internal diameter of a gun barrel, or by extension a relative measure of the length.
In mathematics, the caliber or calibre of a topological space X is a cardinal κ such that for every set of κ nonempty open subsets of X there is some point of X contained in κ of these subsets. This concept was introduced by .
There is a similar concept for posets. A pre-caliber of a poset P is a cardinal κ such that for any collection of elements of P indexed by κ, there is a subcollection of cardinality κ that is centered. Here a subset of a poset is called centered if for any finite subset there is an element of the poset less than or equal to all of them.
Caliber is a villain who fights Alpha Flight on two occasions. He uses an armoured battle suit that grants him superhuman strength and the use of various weapons. His weapons are capable of demolishing buildings and significantly wounding Sasquatch. He is defeated both times by Alpha Flight and imprisoned.
Category:Marvel Comics characters with superhuman strength Category:Marvel Comics supervillains
Usage examples of "caliber".
An artist of the caliber of Monsieur Boulonnais should be introduced to the Scottish art world in a major city of industry and refinement.
Culverins and demiculverins are long-range guns, painstakingly cast of fine bell bronze and hellishly expensive, designed to use a smaller caliber, lighter-weight ball, to provide finer accuracy at a distance than could any cannon.
While it was practically a foregone conclusion that any man of the requisite caliber would already be a member of the Galaxian Society, the three planets and eight satellites were screened, psiontist by psiontist, to select the two strongest and most versatile of their breed.
The robe and the gavel do notwith rare exceptionsturn middle-level politicians, average lawyers, and ideologically extreme professors into justices of the highest caliber.
Americans for whom she had gone to General Quarters so many times, and who now were free to produce other men of the caliber of those lost ones, men who might now not have to die in midocean 4,000 miles from home, who instead could turn their skill and courage toward some small facet of the colossal task of making and keeping this beautiful and varied earth also a fit and decent place in which free, civilized men can live.
General Jackson carried a Lefaucheux Brevete pinfire revolver, twelve millimeters, which translates to roughly forty-five calibers.
Underneath the case were multiple shelves filled with stacks of ammo, but most of the rounds were half-load wadcutters that would only foul a gun barrel if used too much, and anything live was the wrong caliber, .
Ellie believed in her own work, but the caliber of artists in residence at Kellygnow at any given time was in a different class entirely.
The armory had been a treasure trove of blasters and ammo, with enough different calibers to fit the weapons of each companion.
We passed electrified barbed wire emplacements and tall lookout towers snouted with large caliber machine guns and squat grenade launchers.
Indeed, former inspectors fear that UNMOVIC will never have the same caliber of inspectors that UNSCOM had.
Preliminary reports, according to Morales, indicate a thirty-eight caliber pistol.
There is no one for the Soviets to deal withleaders of sharply deteriorating caliber, beset by democracy, by politics, and doing six-month stints between midterm elections, lame-duck periods, and the informal referenda of American public life.
But Barneys right hand, slid idly into the pocket of his well-tailored coat, was resting on a twenty-five caliber revolver.
Between them there'll be guns in all sorts of different calibers and conditions.