ordnance

noun

ord·nance | \ˈȯrd-nən(t)s

Definition of ordnance

1a : military supplies including weapons, ammunition, combat vehicles, and maintenance tools and equipment bombers dropped heavy concentrations of ordnance on every targeted airfield— Ron Dick

b : a service of the army charged with the procuring, distributing, and safekeeping of ordnance

2 : cannon, artillery Several pieces of ordnance bombarded the entrenched enemy.

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Examples of ordnance in a Sentence

The company was outfitted with 50-millimeter ordnance. the army is waiting for the heavy ordnance to be brought in

Recent Examples on the Web

University Heights residents were asked to shelter in place while a bomb squad investigated possible military ordnance discovered by a construction crew Tuesday morning. — Lyndsay Winkley, sandiegouniontribune.com, "Residents shelter in place after construction crew finds possible military ordnance," 22 May 2018 The Army Service units—ordnance, engineers, signal, medical, transportation, quartermaster and others—built up stock piles so large there was no chance of putting many under cover. — Popular Mechanics, "How the D-Day Invasion Was Planned," 6 June 2017 The weapons loaders assemble ordnance and load bombers as though every mission is real. — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, "B-52 Bombers Could Quadruple Their Wing Bomb Loads," 25 June 2018 Despite the odds and the incoming ordnance, the citizens of Vicksburg retained their pluck and defiance to the bitter end. — Russell S. Bonds, WSJ, "‘Vicksburg’ Review: The Falling Tide of Gray," 20 June 2018 Before any of that can happen, the Army would need to clean up unexploded ordnance from its tests, which could be costly and take a while. — Hayden Carpenter, Outside Online, "Our Next National Park Could Be in New Mexico," 3 July 2018 As residents’ visits to Marawi began, three New York Times journalists were given exclusive access both to those neighborhoods and to some parts of the city still cut off to civilians and littered with ordnance and rubble. — Ben C. Solomon And Felipe Villamor, New York Times, "Filipinos Get a Glimpse of Their Ruined City. The Chinese Get the Contract.," 10 Apr. 2018 According to the National Regulatory Authority for unexploded ordnance, a Lao government agency, more than two million tons of bombs were dropped on Laos during the Vietnam War, making the country the most heavily bombed per capita in history. — Michael Downey /, NBC News, "A champion mountain biker faces her toughest challenge: clearing bombs from Laos," 20 Feb. 2018 The ordnance was found in the River Thames early Sunday during planned development work at the airport, east of the Canary Wharf financial district. — Angus Whitley, Bloomberg.com, "London City Airport Scraps Monday Flights as WW2 Bomb Found," 12 Feb. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'ordnance.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.