Chu-ko-nu

//ˌtʃuːkəʊˈnuː// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An early Chinese repeating crossbow.

    "The chu-ko-nu, equipped with a magazine to hold bolts or, as in this case, pellets, was used in China well into the twentieth century (Needham et al. 1994: 157-64; Selby 2003: 62-63)."

Example

More examples

"The chu-ko-nu, equipped with a magazine to hold bolts or, as in this case, pellets, was used in China well into the twentieth century (Needham et al. 1994: 157-64; Selby 2003: 62-63)."

Etymology

From Mandarin 諸葛弩 /诸葛弩 (Zhūgě nǔ, literally “Zhuge crossbow”) Wade–Giles romanization: chu¹-ko³-nu³.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.