rafale

Meaning

Noun

• A short, intense burst of artillery fire from a number of weapons fired with the intention of overwhelming resistance or routing an attacking force.

Origin

• Borrowed from French rafale. In the military context the term may well be obsolete in English; it had been been introduced into French military usage by General Hippolyte Langlois in the late nineteenth century, and adopted into English and American usage not long after, but the usage seems to have petered out in English by the end of World War I.