Roaring Meg

English

Noun

Roaring Meg (plural Roaring Megs)

  1. A large cannon; specifically, the large 15th cannon at Edinburgh Castle (more usually called ‘Mons Meg’), or the cannon used to defend [London]derry during the siege of 1688-9.
  2. (figuratively, now rare) Any large or impressive thing.
    • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition II, section 2, member 6, subsection iii:
      Musica est mentis medicina mæstæ, a roaring-meg against melancholy, to rear and revive the languishing soul […]
  3. (obsolete) A kind of spinning top.
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