The petard by Francis Grose, 1812
A 19th-century British army petard
A petard was a medieval small bomb used to blow up
gates and walls when breaching fortifications.
A petard mortar was the demolition weapon fitted to the Churchill AVRE tank. It
was a mortar of a 290 mm bore, known to its crews as the "flying dustbin" due to the characteristics of its projectile: an
unaerodynamic 20 kg charge, sufficient to demolish many bunkers and earthworks and even disable a Tiger tank, which could be fired up to 100 m.
In Maltese English, home-made fireworks—a popular and widespread albeit highly
dangerous hobby in Malta—are called petards (the word in Maltese, murtal, is obviously related to "mortar"). In Malta, petards are detonated by the dozen
during feasts dedicated to local patron saints. Maltese petards are made by common people
without formal education in chemistry, as an exercise in traditional handiwork. Consequently,
safety is frequently neglected and fatal accidents are common.
Etymology: Middle French, from peter, to break wind, from pet expulsion
of intestinal gas, from Latin peditum, from
neuter of peditus, past participle of pedere,
to break wind; akin to Greek bdein to break wind. (Merriam-Webster)
"Hoist by his own petard"
The word remains in modern usage in the phrase to be hoist by one's own petard, which means "to be harmed by one's own
plan to harm someone else" or "to fall in one's own trap". Shakespeare coined the
now proverbial phrase in Hamlet.
In the following passage, the "letters" refer to instructions (written by his uncle Claudius, the King) to be carried sealed
to the King of England, by Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the latter being two schoolfellows of Hamlet. The letters, as
Hamlet suspects, contain a death warrant against Hamlet, who will later open and modify them to instead request the execution of
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Enginer refers to a military engineer.
- There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows,
- Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,
- They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way
- And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
- For 'tis the sport to have the enginer
- Hoist with his own petar; and 't shall go hard
- But I will delve one yard below their mines
- And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet,
- When in one line two crafts directly meet.
After modifying the letters Hamlet escapes the ship and returns to Denmark.
In medieval and Renaissance siege warfare, a common tactic was to dig a shallow trench close to the enemy gate, and then erect
a small hoisting engine that would lift the lit petard out of the trench, swing it up, out, and over to the gate, where it would
detonate and hopefully breach the gate. It was not impossible, however, that this procedure would go awry, and the engineer
lighting the bomb could be snagged in the ropes and lifted out with the petard and consequently blown up. Alternately, and
perhaps a more likely scenario, if the petard were to detonate prematurely due to a faulty or short fuse, the engineer would be
lifted or 'hoist' by the explosion.
Thus to be 'hoist with his own petar' is to be caught up and destroyed by his own plot. Hamlet's actual meaning is "cause the
bomb maker to be blown up with his own bomb", metaphorically turning the tables on Claudius, whose messengers are killed instead
of Hamlet. Also note here, Shakespeare's probable off-color pun "hoisted with his own peter" as reason for the spelling "petar"
rather than "petard".
See also
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