| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| bayonet |
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| SYLLABICATION: | bay·o·net |
| PRONUNCIATION: |  b   -n t, -n t , b-nt |
| NOUN: | A blade adapted to fit the muzzle end of a rifle and used as a weapon in close combat. | | TRANSITIVE VERB: | Inflected forms: bay·o·net·ed or bay·o·net·ted, bay·o·net·ing or bay·o·net·ting, bay·o·nets or bay·o·nets
To prod, stab, or kill with this weapon. | | ETYMOLOGY: | French baïonnette, after Bayonne, a town of southwest France. | | WORD HISTORY: | It is not unusual for a word to come from a place name. Cheddar, from the name of a village in southwest England; hamburger, after Hamburg, Germany; and mayonnaise, possibly from Mahón, the capital of Minorca, are often found together on our tables. The word bayonet, a very undomestic sort of word, also derives from a place name, that of Bayonne, a town in southwest France where the weapon was first made. The French word baïonnette could also mean “a dagger or a knife,” and the English word bayonet is first found in 1672 with this meaning. The word is first recorded in its present sense in 1704.
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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