[f. the sb.: cf. It. cannonare.]
1. intr. To discharge a cannon. trans. To cannonade.
1691. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), II. 170. To learn and use the art of canooning and bombarding.
1693. Mem. Ct. Teckely, I. 43. At break of day they began to Cannon the Imperialists.
1865. Spectator, 7 Jan., 5. He must … cannon them into material civilization.
2. Billiards. To play one’s ball so as to make a CANNON (see sense 7). Also (of the ball), to strike and rebound.
1844. Mardon, Billiards, 11. Any bungler can canon full upon a ball.
1859. J. Lang, Wand. India, 114. He cannoned all over the table, went in off the red and white.
1864. Spectator, 531. The art of cannoning as it were, against the miserable, the ball ultimately meant to strike the great and powerful.
1873. Bennett & ‘Cavendish,’ Billiards, 225. If the spot-white is cannoned on full, the balls will be left together.
3. trans. To strike with rebounding collision (prop. laterally or obliquely), to come into violent collision with.
1864. Vámbéry, Trav. Centr. Asia, 197–8. Our heads were continually cannoning each other like balls on a billiard table.
b. intr. (with various preps.)
1872. Daily News, 25 March, 5/2. Franc Huron and Acton cannoned, and both fell.
1879. F. Pollok, Sport Brit. Burmah, I. 111. He [a blind bear] used to get loose and run up the first tree against which he cannoned.
1880. Miss Braddon, Just as I am, xvii. 106. Scampering over hedges and ditches, and cannoning at gates.
