Major-General Henry Shrapnel was the English inventor who changed late-18th century artillery with the shrapnel shell. It was a normal artillery shell with a second charge that shot bullets or balls near the end of its flight. Soon, any hard projectiles formed by explosive fragmentation (like from an anti-personal mine or wall hit by a bomb) came to be known as shrapnel.
From the Online Etymology Dictionary: ; shrapnel : 1806, from Gen. Henry Shrapnel (1761-1842), who invented a type of exploding, fragmenting shell when he was a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery during the Peninsular War. The invention consisted of a hollow cannon ball, filled with shot, which burst in mid-air; his name for it was spherical case ammunition. Sense of "shell fragments" is first recorded 1940. The surname is attested from 13c., and is believed to be a metathesized form of Charbonnel, a dim. form of O.Fr. charbon "charcoal," in ref. to complexion, hair color, or some other quality.
shrapnel is a piece of metal. for example when a bomb explodes it creates shrapnel
Joe Shrapnel's birth name is Joe Sebastian Shrapnel.
Lex Shrapnel's birth name is Alexander Carey Shrapnel.
Tom Shrapnel's birth name is Thomas Heydon Shrapnel.
Over a dozen Marines were wounded on Saturday when they were struck by shrapnel from an IED. The word shrapnel is a noun.
Shrapnel
The word 'shrapnel' is named after Henry Shrapnel the Englishman who invented it back in the 1700's.
Shrapnel is named after Major General Henry Shrapnel (1761 - 1842) an English artillery officer
Haze Shrapnel was created on 2008-02-17.
I was pelted with shrapnel from the exploding grenades.
Hugh Shrapnel was born in 1947.