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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Derringer

Derringer \Der"rin*ger\, n. [From the American inventor.] A kind of short-barreled pocket pistol, of very large caliber, often carrying a half-ounce ball.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
derringer

1850, for Henry Deringer (1786-1868), U.S. gunsmith who invented it in the 1840s; prevailing misspelled form is how his name appeared on the many counterfeits and imitations. "A small pistol with a large bore, very effective at short range" [OED].

Wiktionary
derringer

n. A type of very small, concealable pistol with one or two barrels, but without any loading system or magazine.

WordNet
derringer

n. a pocket pistol of large caliber with a short barrel

Wikipedia
Derringer

The term derringer is a genericized misspelling of the last name of Henry Deringer, a famous 19th-century maker of small pocket pistols. Many copies of the original Philadelphia Deringer pistol were made by other gun makers worldwide, and the name was often misspelled; this misspelling soon became an alternative generic term for any pocket pistol, along with the generic phrase palm pistol, which Deringer's competitors invented and used in their advertising. The original Deringer pistol was a single-shot muzzleloading pistol; with the advent of cartridge firearms, pistols began to be produced in the modern form still known as a derringer.

Derringer (album)

Derringer is a 1976 album by Derringer and was released on the Blue Sky Records label.

Derringer (disambiguation)

A derringer is a type of pistol.

Derringer or Deringer may also refer to:

  • Derringer (surname)
  • Derringer (album), album by Rick Derringer
  • Derringer Award
  • Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, law firm
  • Miss Derringer, American rock band
  • Wing Derringer, plane
  • Yancy Derringer, television series
Derringer (surname)

Derringer is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

  • Henry Deringer (1786–1868), gunsmith
  • John Derringer, broadcaster
  • Nancy Nall Derringer, journalist
  • Paul Derringer (1906–1987), baseball player
  • Rick Derringer (born 1947), guitarist

Usage examples of "derringer".

The American Civil War Centennial had bred a thriving market for shooting reproductions of nineteenth-century caplock weaponsranging up from Philadelphia derringers to full-size field cannonand his firm had sent him over to try to strike a deal with certain of his contacts in the Italian arms manufactories involving production of these reproduction weapons at a cost less than that charged to them by American arms companies, with their millstones of higher overheads and production costs, and grasping, predatory unions.

International Colloquium of Cryptozoologists, Nancy Derringer had trudged through Himalayan snows for Yeti, plumbed deep-water lakes all over the Americas and the British Isles for surviving plesiosaurs, and penetrated abyssal depths in quest of garagantuan cephalopods.

Wessons, Mausers, Webleys, Lugers, Winchesters, Deringers and Derringers, Adams and Rugers, flintlocks and percussion cap blasters, muskets, rifles and carbines.

He passes a boxed pair of Number 4 Derringers, be a nice gun for Jeanine, she could tuck it in her G-string, fire off a shot with every bump and grind.

That was all I could think when I found myself staring at the headline: DA-DETECTIVE RELATIONSHIP CLOUDS DERRINGER CASE The deputy district attorney prosecuting Frank DERRINGER is involved in a romantic relationship with a lead detective in the investigation of the murder of Jamie Zimmerman and the rape of which DERRINGER is accused, the Oregonian has learned.

To complicate things further, someone has written anonymous letters to the Oregonian, claiming that he and an unnamed accomplice, and not Frank Derringer, are responsible for the attack on Miss Martin.

Derringer warrants an indictment, regardless of the exculpatory evidence.

Mostly I just sat around and looked big, which I was then and no fat, but sometimes I did have to calm down a customer or maybe throw him out, and I kept under my weskit a Starr pepperbox derringer in case of real trouble.

He told him about his father's Derringer pistol, which could be carried in a vest pocket, which was yet capable of making a hole in a man 'which a bull bat could fly through without touching either wing.

Those derringers don't have safety mechanisms and the firing pins are longer than the breech faces.

She dropped her purse, scattering lipsticks, loose change, a small department store's worth of cosmetics, two mirrors, a handful of foil-wrapped condoms, a bottle of aspirin, a neat little pearl-handled derringer, and three boxes of Tic Tacs.

Beneath it lay a large coil of strong rope, thirty feet or more, a dagger, three files, ten feet of electric wire, a thin, powerful pair of steel pliers, a small tack hammer with its handle, and -- and a Derringer pistol.

Beneath it lay a large coil of strong rope, thirty feet or more, a dagger, three files, ten feet of electric wire, a thin, powerful pair of steel pliers, a small tack hammer with its handle, andand a Derringer pistol.

He opened the box and from it brought forth a single-shot Derringer twenty-two pistol.