From Old French 'artillerie' (military equipment); originally meant all war gear, narrowed to heavy guns after the arrival of gunpowder.
Large-caliber weapons used in warfare on land, such as cannons and howitzers; the branch of an army that uses such weapons.
From Old French 'artillerie' (equipment, munitions), from 'artiller' (to equip, to arm), probably an alteration of 'atillier' (to equip, to arrange), from Vulgar Latin *apticulāre, from Latin 'aptāre' (to fit, to adapt), from 'aptus' (fitted, suitable). The word originally meant military equipment generally — bows, crossbows, siege engines — before narrowing to mean specifically cannons and heavy guns after the introduction of gunpowder weapons in the fourteenth century. Key roots: artiller (Old French: "to equip, to arm"), aptāre (Latin
The word 'artillery' is older than cannons. When Chaucer used it in 1386, he meant bows and crossbows. The word originally just meant 'equipment for war.' When gunpowder weapons arrived, they were so dominant that 'artillery' was co-opted to mean exclusively cannons and heavy guns — one of the clearest examples of a word being hijacked by new technology.