Obs. [f. WIND sb.1 + GUN sb.] A gun for shooting a missile by the force of compressed air: = AIR-GUN.

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1644.  Digby, Nat. Bodies, xii. § 6. 104. The experience of windgunnes assureth vs that ayre duly applyed is able to giue greater motion vnto heauy bodies then vnto light ones.

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1728.  Pope, Dunc., I. 181. As, forc’d from wind-guns, lead itself can fly.

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1779.  Phil. Trans., LXIX. 399. That air compressed to one tenth in a wind gun possesses a power not much short of gunpowder.

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1800.  Sporting Mag., XVI. 273. It will not be out of place here to add some remarks on wind guns.

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  fig.  1663.  Cowley, Cutter Coleman-St., Prol. They [sc. critics] shoot, alas, with Wind-gunns, charg’d with Air.

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1680.  Collect. Poems, 190. I am one of those that have been shot at by Wind-Guns, which have prejudiced my Reputation.

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1781.  Cowper, Conversat., 274. His whisper’d theme, dilated and at large, Proves after all a wind-gun’s airy charge.

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