Usually pl. [f. FIRE sb. + ARM sb.2] A weapon from which missiles are propelled by the combustion of gunpowder or other explosive. (The sing. is late and rare in use.)
1646. Evelyn, Diary. Here [Brescia] I purchas’d of old Lazarino Cominazzo my fine carabine, which cost me 9 pistoles, this Citty being famous for these fire-armes.
1647. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., II. (1702), I. 92. Though They had the possession of all the King’s Forts and Magazines there, nor had they Ammunition to supply their few Fire-Arms.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe (1840), I. xvii. 331. I left them my fire-arms; viz. five muskets, three fowling-pieces, and three swords.
1840. Thackeray, Paris Sk.-bk. (1872), 197. All of a sudden he heard the report of a fire-arm.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., III. 267. Battles are more and more fought out with fire-arms.
Hence Fire-armed ppl. a., provided with fire-arms.
1869. Petherick, Trav., I. 138–9. The negroes fought valiantly for a time; but having only clubs and lances, they were soon overpowered by the firearmed Arabs.
