cannon
/ˈkæn.ən/noun, verb
cannon is spelled C-A-N-N-O-N: 6 letters and 2 syllables. It appears 10 times per million words in written English, the 6,884th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “cannon vs canon” about 4,400 times a month (Google, United States). As a noun, cannon means “A complete assembly, consisting of an artillery tube and a breech mechanism, firing mechanism or base cap, which is a component of a gun, howitzer or…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of cannon is cannons.
How many letters and syllables are in cannon?
| Letters | 6: C-A-N-N-O-N |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 10 times per million words; the 6,884th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How common is cannon?
Cannon appears 10 times per million words in written English, the 6,884th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce cannon?
- /ˈkæn.ən/
Cannon has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-cannon.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with cannon
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: canon (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Also written: canon.
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
Forms of cannon
- cannons plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- cannoning participle, present
- cannoned participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does cannon mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A complete assembly, consisting of an artillery tube and a breech mechanism, firing mechanism or base cap, which is a component of a gun, howitzer or mortar, which may include muzzle appendages.
Holonyms: gun, field gun; howitzer; mortar
- 2
Any similar device for shooting material out of a tube.
water cannon; glitter cannon; confetti cannon; potato cannon
- 3
An autocannon.
- 4
A bone of a horse’s leg, between the fetlock joint and the knee or hock.
- 5
A rolled and filleted loin of meat.
a canon of beef or lamb
- 6
A cannon bit.
- 7
A large muzzle-loading artillery piece.
Near-synonym: gun (often synonymous)
- 8
A carom.
In English billiards, a cannon is when one’s cue ball strikes the other player’s cue ball and the red ball on the same shot; and it is worth two points.
verb
- 1
To bombard with cannons.
- 2
To play the carom billiard shot; to strike two balls with the cue ball.
The white cannoned off the red onto the pink.
- 3
To fire something, especially spherical, rapidly.
- 4
To collide or strike violently, especially so as to glance off or rebound.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Cannon in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense artillery piece:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does cannon come from?
Attested from around 1400 as Middle English canon, canoun, from Old French canon, from Italian cannone, from Latin canna, from Ancient Greek κάννα (kánna, “reed”), from Akkadian 𒄀 (qanû, “reed”), from Sumerian 𒄀𒈾 (gi.na) (for more, see cane). Doublet of canyon. This spelling was not fixed until about 1800.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).