Definition of cannonball
1 : a usually round solid missile made for firing from a cannon
2 : a jump into water made with the arms holding the knees tight against the chest
3 : a hard flat tennis service
4 : an express train
From the M-W Editors
Recent Examples of cannonball from the Web
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Don your floaties and make a giant cannonball splash into a pool.
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Comey's first cannonball into the public eye came more than a decade ago, on May 15, 2007, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the firings of US attorneys by George W. Bush's White House.
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Not when Dalton slept on the line roped off to trees on the vertical Monkey Fire, fire spotty all around, rocks hurtling down out of the darkness like cannonballs.
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The walls of a nearby 15th-century fort are still embedded with French cannonballs.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'cannonball.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
First Known Use of cannonball
1655
cannonball
Definition of cannonball
intransitive verb
: to travel with great speed
Examples of cannonball in a Sentence
a dune buggy came recklessly cannonballing down the crowded beach
First Known Use of cannonball
1951
CANNONBALL Defined for English Language Learners
cannonball
playDefinition of cannonball for English Language Learners
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: a heavy metal or stone ball that is shot from a cannon
CANNONBALL Defined for Kids
cannonball
playDefinition of cannonball for Students
1 : a usually round solid missile (as of stone or metal) for firing from a cannon
2 : a jump into water made with the arms holding the knees tight against the chest
Learn More about cannonball
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