Roaring Meg

noun

A large cannon; specifically, the large 15th cannon at Edinburgh Castle (more usually called ‘Mons Meg’), or the cannon used to defend Londonderry during the siege of 1688-9.

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Meanings

nounRoaring Meg (plural Roaring Megs)

plural Roaring Megs

  1. historicalA large cannon; specifically, the large 15th cannon at Edinburgh Castle (more usually called ‘Mons Meg’), or the cannon used to defend Londonderry during the siege of 1688-9.
  2. archaicfigurativelyAny large or impressive thing.

    Musica est mentis medicina mæstæ, a roaring-meg against melancholy, to rear and revive the languishing soul […]

    1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition II, section 2, member 6, subsection iii
  3. obsoleteA kind of spinning top.
Cite this entry
APA

Roaring Meg. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Roaring%20Meg

MLA

“Roaring Meg.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Roaring%20Meg. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Roaring Meg,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Roaring%20Meg.

Source: Roaring Meg on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.