Word Nerd: Carronade

Carronade  [karehnad]

noun

1. an archaic, short-snouted, cast-iron artillery weapon capable of firing long shot at close range with a limited amount of gunpowder; a cannon, mainly used on warships, common aboard British Royal Navy vessels circa 17701850, and popular with American revolutionaries, pirates and privateers due to the relative lighter weight of the weapon, which required less man power to load and maneuver

Origin:

From English, carron company, the original manufacturer of the smoothbore gun located in Falkirk, Scotland, and, -ade, borrowed from the French, with the Latin root -ata, a suffix meaning an act or process, a product or result.

Now on display at the Columbia River Maritime Museum, the two cannons, known more specifically as carronades, were discovered in 2008 during Presidents Day weekend. Mike Petrone of Tualatin and his daughter Miranda, who was 12 years old at the time, discovered the first cannon while walking along the beach in Arch Cape. Two days later the second one was found by Sharisse Repp of Tualatin.

?Ted Shorack, Cannons from USS Shark to be displayed, The Daily Astorian, May 25, 2014

The Shark was wrecked on attempting to leave the Columbia River on Sept. 10, 1846, and part of her deck and a small iron cannon drifted ashore south of Tillamook Head, thus giving the name to Cannon Beach. … The compiler has no positive information but assumes Shark Creek [just east of Arch Cape] takes its name from the ship of the unfortunate Lieutenant Howison.

?Lewis A. McArthur, Oregon Geographic Names, Sixth Edition, ed. Lewis L. McArthur, 1992