A long, slender cannon used in the 16th and 17th centuries, smaller than a cannon but larger than a musket.
From French couleuvrine, derived from couleuvre (snake, from Latin colubra), because the cannon's long, narrow shape resembled a snake. This military weapon was named for its physical appearance.
The culverin is named after a snake—couleuvre in French—because early gunners saw its long barrel and thought it looked serpentine; this kind of weapon naming shows how people used animals and nature to describe new technologies they didn't yet have established words for.
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