muff pistol
nounEtymology From muff + pistol.
1
Historical A small flintlock or percussion gun, usually for women, which can be hidden in a muff (hand-warmer).
- A century earlier [than the 1870s], women in dangerous professions, such as tending bar or prostitution, carried a “lady's muff pistol.”2006, Elisabeth Israels Perry and Jennifer Ann Price, expanatory note for An American girl, and her four years in a boys' college by Olive San Louie Anderson, page 203