pepperbox
nounEtymology From pepper + box.
1
A pepper shaker.
2
Engineering, Firearms, Government, Military, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Politics, Tools, War, Weaponry A repeating firearm with three or more barrels grouped around a central axis.
- She had her knees up, resting her wrists on them; the pepperbox muzzle of a flechette pistol emerged from her hands.1984, William Gibson, Neuromancer (Sprawl; book 1), New York, N.Y.: Ace Books, →ISBN, page 21:
3
A buttress at one side of the court in the game of fives.
4
Architecture A tower capped by a cupola, looking similar to a giant pepper shaker.
- Large, stately, and dark was its [the château's] outline against the dusky night-sky; there were pepper-boxes and tourelles and what-not fantastically going up into the dim starlight.1861, Elizabeth Gaskell, The Grey Woman:
5
Architecture In plural, Slang Any of the buildings of the Royal Academy and National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, London, having cupolas on the roof.
- I also remember the old Royal Mews that stood on the site of the present trumpery National Gallery, with its too suggestive pepper-boxes; […]1887, Charles Mackay, Through the Long Day: Or, Memorials of a Literary Life, page 113:
- Its architect, Wilkins, had the misfortune to be chosen to erect our much-abused National Gallery building, with its condemned "pepper-boxes" of cupolas; […]2012, Edward Verrall Lucas, Highways and Byways in London: