[f. CANNON sb.1 as being tube- or reed-shaped; in F. canon.] The single bones between the knee or hough and fetlock of the fore and hind leg (of a horse or other quadruped), the metacarpal and metatarsal bones respectively.
1834. Sir C. Bell, Hand, 92. When we look in front, instead of the four metacarpal bones, we see one strong bone, the cannon bone.
1854. Owen, in Circ. Sc. (1865), II. 83/1. The single bone [of ox], called ‘cannon-bone,’ which articulates with both these carpal bones, does not answer to the single ‘cannon-bone’ in the horse, but to the metatarsals of both the third and the fourth digits.
1872. H. A. Nicholson, Palæont., 400. These are anchylosed together in the adult, and form a single mass which is known as the ‘canon-bone.’
