What is "quaker gun"

Quaker \Quak"er\, n.

1. One who quakes.

2. One of a religious sect founded by George Fox, of Leicestershire, England, about 1650, -- the members of which call themselves Friends. They were called Quakers, originally, in derision. See Friend, n., 4.

   Fox's teaching was primarily a preaching of repentance . . . The trembling among the listening crowd caused or confirmed the name of Quakers given to the body; men and women sometimes fell down and lay struggling as if for life.
   --Encyc. Brit.

3. (Zo["o]l.)

   1. The nankeen bird.

   2. The sooty albatross.

   3. Any grasshopper or locust of the genus Edipoda; -- so called from the quaking noise made during flight.

      Quaker buttons. (Bot.) See Nux vomica.

      Quaker gun, a dummy cannon made of wood or other material; -- so called because the sect of Friends, or Quakers, hold to the doctrine, of nonresistance.

      Quaker ladies (Bot.), a low American biennial plant ( Houstonia c[ae]rulea), with pretty four-lobed corollas which are pale blue with a yellowish center; -- also called bluets, and little innocents.

n. (alternative form of Quaker gun English)

A Quaker gun is a deception tactic that was commonly used in warfare during the 18th and 19th centuries. Although resembling an actual cannon, the Quaker gun was simply a wooden log, usually painted black, used to deceive an enemy. Misleading the enemy as to the strength of an emplacement was an effective delaying tactic. The name derives from the Religious Society of Friends or "Quakers", who have traditionally held a religious opposition to war and violence in the Peace Testimony.