Breechloader

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A firearm, such as a rifle or cannon, that is loaded through an opening at the back of its barrel rather than from the muzzle
2. A gun designed to take its ammunition at the breech end instead of through the front of the barrel
3. Any weapon of the rifle or artillery kind that receives its charge into the rear part of the barrel near the firing mechanism

Etymology: The history of "breechloader" is plain: it is a compound of "breech" and "loader." The "breech" is the rear end of a gun barrel, the part where the charge is inserted, and a "loader" is anything that loads, so the whole word simply names a firearm loaded from the back rather than through the muzzle. Early guns were muzzleloaders, and the appeal of loading at the breech was that the shooter could load more quickly, without having to ram powder and shot down the full length of the barrel. The word's parts have their own long histories. "Breech" comes from Old English "brēc," the plural of "bröc," meaning "trousers" or "breeches," and the sense of the gun's rear end developed from the idea of the lower part of something, the way the bottom of a cannon was its "breech." "Loader" is an agent formation from "load," which has Old English roots in "lād," meaning a way or course, and later came to mean a burden. The compound itself is a straightforward English formation, built as firearms began to be designed for loading from the rear.