cannon: English has two different words cannon, neither of which can for certain be connected with canon. The earlier, ‘large gun’ [16], comes via French canon from Italian cannone ‘large tube’, which was a derivative of canna ‘tube, pipe’, from Latin canna (source of English cane). Cannon as in ‘cannon off something’ [19] is originally a billiards term, and was an alteration (by association with cannon the gun) of an earlier carom (the form still used in American English).
This came from Spanish carombola, a kind of fruit fancifully held to resemble a billiard ball, whose ultimate source was probably an unrecorded *karambal in the Marathi language of south central India. => cane; carom
cannon (n.)
c. 1400, "tube for projectiles," from Anglo-French canon, Old French canon (14c.), from Italian cannone "large tube, barrel," augmentative of Latin canna "reed, tube" (see cane (n.)). Meaning "large ordnance piece," the main modern sense, is from 1520s. Spelling not differentiated from canon till c. 1800. Cannon fodder (1891) translates German kanonenfutter (compare Shakespeare's food for powder in "I Hen. IV").
双语例句
1. The stillness of night was broken by the boom of a cannon.
夜晚的寂静被隆隆的炮声打破。
来自柯林斯例句
2. Max is a loose cannon politically.
马克斯在政治上我行我素。
来自柯林斯例句
3. The conscripts were treated as cannon fodder.
应征入伍者被当做炮灰。
来自柯林斯例句
4. Many cynical managers see employees as cannon fodder.
许多自私自利的经理视员工如草芥。
来自柯林斯例句
5. The bullets and cannon - balls were flying in all directions.
