bandook, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

bandook n.

also barndook, bundook, buntock

[‘Bunduk was a name applied by the Arabs to filberts (as some allege) because they came from Venice (Banadik, ? f. Ger. Venedig). The name was transferred to the nut-like pellets shot from crossbows and thence the crossbows or arblasts were called bundooks, f. kaus al-bundook, pellet bow. From crossbows the name was transferred again to fire arms’ (Y&B)]

(orig. Anglo-Ind.) a musket, a rifle, a crossbow.

1783		F. Gladwin trans. Ayeen Akbery I 111: The smallest bundooks that are made are two spans long; and the longest near two ells.
1821		Morn. Post (London) 17 Oct. 4/3: [N]ot a soul was in sight, except my boy, who was close at my heels with a rifle gun, calling out, ‘Bundook Saheb.’ I caught the piece out of his hand, and putting another ball into the tyger’s head, he was dead before any one came up with us.
[1843		Bellew Memoirs of a Griffin I 195: ‘Bearah Bundook laou juldee! bring up the rifle quickly’].
1858		Derbys. Advertiser 24 Dec. 6/2: The rebels had guns, and such was their flight that swords, bundooks, bundles of clothes, tatoos, spears, camels, all were abandoned.
1875		‘Aliph Cheem’ Lays of Ind (1905) 102: ‘Sa’ib take bundook, and shoot him as he sleeping, full of wife!’ .
1876		Illus. London News 8 July 36: [illus.] Arms from the Prince of Wales’s Indian Collection [...] 9. Bundook or Matchlock, Central India.
1885		L. Emanuel Jottings [...] of a Bengal ‘qui hye’ 119: ‘Hand me that Chotà-bundook (Pistol, but literally ‘little gun’).
1886		Yule & Burnell Hobson-Jobson (1994) 127: bundook, s. H. band ?k, from Ar. bunduk. The common H. term for a musket or matchlock.
1892		Punch 8 Oct. 159: It sometimes creates a pretty effect to call your gun ‘My old fire-iron,’ or ‘my bundook,’ or ‘this old gas-pipe of mine.’.
1892		Civil & Milit. Gaz. (Lahore) 26 Jan. 4/3: [A] place hounded by bastions bristling with bundooks.
1916		Yorks Eve. Post 16 Oct. 5/4: Most soldiers speak of their rifle, bayonet and cartridges as [...] ‘bond-hook’, ‘tooth pick’ and ‘Beecham’s pills’.
1917		A.G. Empey Over the Top ‘Tommy’s Dict. of the Trenches’ 283: ‘Barndook.’ Tommy’s nickname for his rifle. He uses it because it is harder to say and spell than ‘rifle.’.
1925		(con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 16: Bandook: Barndook: Bundook: (Hind. Banduq, musket). A rifle.
1928		‘Sapper’ Female of the Species (1961) 79: Next man in is the bloke with the hands who let drive with his bundook.
1930		(con. 1914–18) Brophy & Partridge Songs and Sl. of the British Soldier 96: Bandook — A rifle.
1938		Press (Canterbury) 2 Apr. 18: From Arabic came ‘bun- tock,’ a rifle.
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 119: Greengage hung on to his bundook and about fifty rounds.
1981		Eastern anthropologist XXXIV 334: ‘Revolution flows out of the barrel of a bandook (gun)’, says the Prosecutor with mock seriousness. ‘Then we shall reply them with guns,’ declares the contractor.
2005		S. Sareen Jihad Factory 23: This has been replaced by the concept of ‘Alif’ for Allah, ‘Be’ for Bandook (gun).