petard

A petard, from a seventeenth century manuscript of military designs.

A 19th-century British army petard

A petard was a small bomb used to blow up gates and walls when breaching fortifications. The term has a French origin and dates back to the sixteenth century.^[1] In a typical implementation, it was commonly either a conical or rectangular metal object containing 2-3 kg (5 or 6 pounds) of gunpowder, activated with a slow match used as a fuse.

Etymology

Look up petard in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Look up hoist with one's own petard in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

The word petard comes from the Middle French 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) Petard remains a French word meaning a firecracker today (in French slang, it means a handgun, or a marijuana cigarette).

The word remains in modern usage in the phrase hoist with one's own petard, which means "to be harmed by one's own plan to harm someone else" or "to fall into one's own trap," literally implying that one could be lifted up (hoist, or blown upward) by one's own bomb.

Overview

Petards were often placed either inside tunnels under walls, or directly upon gates. When placed inside a tunnel under a wall and exploded, large amounts of air would often be released from the tunnel, as the tunnel collapsed. By securing the device firmly to the gate, the shape of the device allows the concussive pressure of the blast to be applied entirely towards the destruction of the gate. Depending on design, a petard could be secured by propping it against the gate using beams as illustrated, or nailing it in place by way of a wooden board fixed to the end of the petard in advance.^[2]

Variants

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 which could be fired up to 100 m. This was sufficient to demolish many bunkers and earthworks and even disable a Tiger tank.^{[citation needed]}

In Maltese English, home-made fireworks 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.^{[citation needed]}

"Hoist with his own petard"

If a petard were to detonate prematurely due to a faulty or short slow match, the engineer would be lifted by the explosion. William Shakespeare used the now proverbial phrase "hoist with his own petard" in Hamlet. ("hoist" being a little used alternative spelling of "hoisted".)

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, the spelling reflecting Elizabethan stress.

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. 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 "hoist with his own petar", i.e., flatulate, as the reason for the spelling "petar" rather than "petard".^[3][4]

See also

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Petard.

• Fougasse (weapon)
• List of inventors killed by their own inventions

References