canon bit meaning (obsolete): definition

canon bit

noun

Etymology From French canon, from Latin canon (“a rule”).

Obsolete, Rare The part of a bit which is put in a horse's mouth.

[…] A goodly person, and could menage faire His stubborne steed with curbed canon bit1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
blind the disunions of complaining nature in chains together, and curb them with a canon bit1643, J[ohn] M[ilton], The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce: […], London: […] T[homas] P[aine] and M[atthew] S[immons] […], →OCLC: