The barrel of a
gun or other
firearm is the tube, usually
metal, through which a controlled
explosion is released in order to propel a
projectile out of the end at great speed.The first guns were made in a time where
metallurgy was not quite what it is today, so the pipe needed to be braced periodically along its length, producing an appearance somewhat reminiscent of a storage barrel.Another explanation, tied to etymology, states that many very first firearms barrels were in fact realized, during the 12th and 13th centuries, using small
storage barrels with their usual metal rings reinforced by leather, hence the barrel name. In fact a set of old French words, some of them staying in modern French, were used as root words for various English terms related to firearms (and storage barrels). The old French
gonne (pronounced by a French speaker it sounds approximately as gun does when pronounced by an English speaker) was a small barrel used on merchant and military ships. Likewise a baril was, as early as about 1320 (used in Du Chevalier au barisel), and remains now, a big barrel. Moreover the big
Tun English barrel is, as stated in
Ton, the French old and contemporary tonne barrel.
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