small arm

small arm (plural small arms)

1. A firearm designed to be carried and fired by a single person, and often held in the hand.
   • 1685, Basil Ringrose, Bucaniers of America‎^[1], London: William Crooke, Volume 2, Part 4, Chapter 3, p. 10:

     […] about break of day, we heard from the Town a small Arm discharged, and after that a Drum beating a travailler.

   • 1724, Daniel Defoe, chapter 17, in A General History of the Pyrates‎^[2], London: T. Warner, page 398:

     If any Man shall offer to run away, or keep any Secret from the Company, he shall be marroon’d, with one Bottle of Powder, one Bottle of Water, one small Arm, and Shot.

   • 1880, George Manville Fenn, chapter 6, in Jack at Sea‎^[3], London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, page 77:

     “Men are all well drilled, sir,” continued the captain, “and have regular small-arm practice […] ”

   • 1904, Joseph Conrad, Nostromo, New York and London: Harper, Part 3, Chapter 10, p. 541,^[4]

     […] the first of Barrios’s transports, one of our own ships at that, steamed right in, and, ranging close alongside, opened a small-arm fire without as much preliminaries as a hail.

In the singular, mainly used attributively (e.g. small-arm ammunition).