Forms: 7 caskable, casacabel(l, 9 cascable, 7– cascabel. [a. Sp. cascabel little round bell, child’s rattle, rattlesnake; which has been conjectured to be connected with L. scabellum a kind of castanet played with the foot: see Diez.]
1. Gunnery. Formerly the knob or pommel at the rear end of a cannon; now the whole rear part behind the base ring, including knob and base.
1639. R. Ward, Animadv. Warre, 129. The Center of the pummell or Caskable of the Peece.
1672. W. P., Compl. Gunner, iv. 5. The Pumel or Button at her Coyl or Britch-end is called the Casacabel.
1795. Phil. Trans., LXXXV. 439. A circular cavity … to receive the cascabel of the gun.
1797. Rumford, ibid. LXXXVII. 240. A cannon of metal … placed vertically upon its cascabel.
1858. Greener, Gunnery, 9. Furnished with trunnions, cascable, and touch-hole.
1864. Daily Tel., 25 May, 5/5. The knob of the cascable being transformed into a ring provided with a removable cap.
† b. called also cascabel-deck. Obs.
1669. S. Sturmy, Mariner’s Mag., V. xi. 48. (On engraving of a Gun) Casacabell deck.
1706. Phillips, Cascabel, the Pummel or hindermost round Knob at the Breach of a great Gun, by some called the Cascabel-deck.
ǁ 2. A rattle-snake; also its rattle. [Sp.]
1760–72. trans. Juan & Ulloa’s Voy. S. Amer., I. vii. 60. The cascabel or rattle-snake … at the end of its tail is the cascabel or rattle.
1852. Th. Ross, trans. Humboldt’s Trav., I. iv. 152. The Cascabel, or rattle-snake, the Coral, and other vipers.
