1. [SHOT sb.1 14.] Stones used as missiles, esp. as shot for cannon: cf. STONE sb. 5 g. Also a single stone used as a cannon-ball.
1667. Pepys, Diary, 28 April. A ship of near 500 tons was there found … supposed of Queene Elizabeth’s time,… with a great deal of stone-shot in her,… which was shot then in use.
1712. Motteux, Quix., III. viii. (1749), I. 184. The other slaves … pouring vollies of stone-shot at the guards.
1876. Voyle & Stevenson, Milit. Dict., 410/1.
1910. Encycl. Brit., II. 685/2. [In 1807] a stone-shot weighing some 700 lb. cut the mainmast of Admiral J. T. Duckworth’s flagship in two.
† b. [SHOT sb.1 7 b.] The act of discharging stones from a gun. Obs.
1692. in Capt. Smith’s Seaman’s Gram., II. xvi. 125. In loading your Gun for a Stone-shot you are not to give her the same Charge of Powder as for one of Lead or Iron.
2. [SHOT sb.1 8.] = STONE’S THROW.
1847. Tennyson, Princess, V. 51. He show’d a tent A stone-shot off.
