Enfield rifle

noun

1. a single-shot, muzzleloading rifle, of .577 caliber, used by the British army in the Crimean War and in limited numbers by both sides in the American Civil War.
2. a bolt-action, breech-loading, .303-caliber magazine rifle introduced in Britain in 1902.
3. an American .30-caliber rifle used in World War I by U.S. troops, patterned after the British Enfield rifle.

Enfield rifle

noun

1. a breech-loading bolt-action magazine rifle, usually .303 calibre, used by the British army until World War II and by other countries
2. a 19th-century muzzle-loading musket used by the British army

Word History and Origins

Origin of Enfield rifle¹

Named after Enfield, England, where it was first made

Word History and Origins

Origin of Enfield rifle¹

C19: from Enfield , where it was first made

Example Sentences

In 1942, months after Japan attacked the British territories of Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaya and Burma, 19-year-old Horace was in uniform, shipping out for Asia with an Enfield rifle.

From Washington Post

Almost every male over the age of 55 within the British Commonwealth is familiar with the Short Lee Enfield rifle, the standard infantry weapon for half a century or so.

From Golf Digest

They were able to conclude the soldiers were members of the Union Army, based on uniform buttons found in the pit and a bullet lodged in the one man’s femur, fired from a Confederate Enfield rifle.

From Washington Times

The bullet in the leg of Burial 1 was fired from an imported British Enfield rifle musket then commonly used by Confederates, said Bies, now the superintendent of the Manassas National Battlefield Park.

From Washington Post

Sometime after the attack on Moss, masked white men visited the Tanners and demanded Patrick’s Enfield rifle and the pistol carried by the young man the Tanners hired.

From Slate