[f. name of the inventor: see below.] In full, Whitworth gun or rifle: A form of rifle (either cannon or small arm) invented by Sir Joseph Whitworth of Manchester (1854), having a hexagonal bore with a rapid twist, and firing an elongated shot. Also attrib.
Whitworth metal or steel, a specially strong make of steel cast under hydraulic pressure, used for ordnance and for other purposes.
1858. Greener, Gunnery, 380. The Whitworth has also a greater range, but at a cost of 300 per cent. more friction…. The production of the Whitworth rifle will always be looked upon as an experiment of very great interest.
1860. All Year Round, No. 73. 549. The Armstrong gun, as everybody knows, is a built gun, strong by might of binding rings; the Whitworth is a casting of what is called ‘homogeneous iron.’
1863. in Harvard Mem. Biogr. (1866), I. 251. One family had a Whitworth shot through their house yesterday.
1868. Rep. Brit. Assoc. Adv. Sci., Not. & Abstr. 195. No. 1 projectile is Whitworth steel. Ibid. (1869), (1870), 439. A projectile of ‘Whitworth’ metal.
1902. P. Marshall, Metal Working Tools, 63. For very small threads up to about 1/4 in. diameter, the British Association thread is generally used, while beyond this size the Whitworth Standard is the best.
