A kind of short-barreled pocket pistol, of very large caliber, often carrying a half-ounce ball.
A generic term applied to a variety of pistols that are designed to be kept in a pocket. Originally associated with small handguns designed by Henry Derringer.
A common generic term used to describe small short barrelled percussion or cartridge pistols usually break open types with one or two barrels. From the original maker of these types of pistols HENRY DERINGER (one R only) about 1850.
a pocket pistol of large caliber with a short barrel
a short barreled handgun, with one or two barrels, that must bemanually reloaded after being fired
a small handgun with no magazine and no cylinder
a type of handgun that is very small and short
A generic term applied to many variations of small one-or two-shot pistols, using both percussion caps and cartridges. The original designer, Henry Deringer, spelled his name Deringer, not Derringer.
A small, usually large caliber pistol
A small single-shot or multi-barrelled (rarely more than two) pocket pistol.
The term derringer is a genericized misspelling of the last name of Henry Deringer, a famous maker of small pocket pistols in the 1800s. Many copies of the original Philadelphia Deringer pistol were made by other gun makers worldwide, and the name was often misspelled; this misspelling soon became a generic term for any pocket pistol. The original Deringer pistol was a single shot muzzleloading pistol; with the advent of cartridge firearms, pistols began to be produced in the modern form still known as a "derringer".