Petard
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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, security 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)
[edit] "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 (rather improbably) escapes the ship and returns to Denmark.
The verb "hoist" is an irregular past tense of the obsolete verb "hoise", meaning "raise" or "lift". The same form is used in "burn" and "burnt".
The phrase is usually misquoted as "see the engineer hoist by his own petard" and is taken to mean "the hangman hanged with his own rope", or, as in Roadrunner cartoons, a rope, put out to catch something, entangles and hangs the one who set the trap, while the audience "sees" (watches) in amusement.
Hamlet's actual meaning is "cause the bomb maker to be blown into the air with his own bomb", metaphorically turning the tables on Claudius, whose messengers are killed instead of Hamlet.
