Definition of "cannon"

cannon¹

/ˈkæn.ən/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural cannons or (mainly UK) cannon
1. A complete assembly, consisting of an artillery tube and a breech mechanism, firing mechanism or base cap, which is a component of a gun, howitzer or mortar. It may include muzzle appendages.
2. Any similar device for shooting material out of a tube.
  1. (military, chiefly aviation) An autocannon.
3. A bone of a horse's leg, between the fetlock joint and the knee or hock.
4. A cannon bit.
5. (historical) A large muzzle-loading artillery piece.
6. (sports, billiards, snooker, pool) A carom.
7. (baseball, figuratively, informal) The arm of a player who can throw well.
8. (engineering) A hollow cylindrical piece carried by a revolving shaft, on which it may, however, revolve independently.
9. (historical) A cylindrical item of plate armor protecting the arm, particularly one of a pair of such cylinders worn with a couter, the upper cannon protecting the upper arm and the lower cannon protecting the forearm.
  Quotations
  The pauldrons are rather weak, but the cannons of the vambraces are good and come from an Italian armour of considerably earlier date, for they have the tulip form of the first half of the century.
  1949, The Connoisseur
  During the second half of the century the upper cannons were often joined to the pauldrons […] Here the cannons and the couter, although separate, are joined together when worn by the points securing them to the arming […]
  1972, Claude Blair, European Armour: Circa 1066 to Circa 1700
  The breastplate was now usually globular in shape with attached tassets. The arm defenses were almost always in one piece, the lower and upper cannons joined permanently to the couter with internal leathers and rivets, and the whole frequently also joined permanently to the pauldron.
  2007, Kelly DeVries, Robert Douglas Smith, Medieval Weapons: An Illustrated History of Their Impact, ABC-CLIO, page 178
10. (printing, uncountable) Alternative form of canon (“a large size of type”)
11. (xiangqi) A piece which moves horizontally and vertically like a rook but captures another piece by jumping over a different piece in the line of attack.
12. (US, slang) A pickpocket.
  Quotations
  I also learned never to conspicuoulsy[sic] watch a cannon while he was working. Pickpockets dislike being watched, even by those who may be "right," because they become uneasy and clumsy and feel conspicuous.
  1977, Robert S. Weppner, Street ethnography, page 70
  A good pickpocket is known to his fellows as a pistol. Rufus Dayne is a cannon. One of the best pickpockets in the country, he makes close to a million dollars a year and has no criminal record at all.
  2009, James Thomson, Bedlam City: Savage Worlds Edition, page 377
verb
third-person singular simple present cannons, present participle cannoning, simple past and past participle cannoned
1. To bombard with cannons.
2. (sports, billiards, snooker, pool) To play the carom billiard shot; to strike two balls with the cue ball.
3. To fire something, especially spherical, rapidly.
  Quotations
  Montenegro had hardly threatened in the second period but served notice they were still potent as Nikola Vukcevic took a smart pass from Jovetic and cannoned a shot off Hennessey's shins.
  2011 September 2, “Wales 2-1 Montenegro”, in BBC‎
4. To collide or strike violently, especially so as to glance off or rebound.
  Quotations
  […] he heard the right-hand goal post crack as a pony cannoned into it—crack, splinter, and fall like a mast.
  1898, Rudyard Kipling, “The Maltese Cat”, in The Day's Work‎
  She ran down the stairs which she had come up so nervously that morning and cannoned into Edmund at the bottom.
  1952, C. S. Lewis, chapter 11, in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Collins, published 1998

cannon²

noun
plural cannons
1. (fandom slang) Misspelling of canon.
adjective
not comparable
1. (fandom slang) Misspelling of canon.