Learn English – Why do firearms “report”

etymology

Walking in the country the other day, I heard the report of a shotgun. I started to wonder why this word is used. Merriam-Webster has report:-

  1. An explosive noise: the report of a rifle.

and the etymology as:-

[Middle English, from Old French, from reporter, to report, from Latin
reportāre : re-, re- + portāre, to carry; see per- in Indo-European
roots.]

This doesn't to me have any suggestion of loud bang in it anywhere. So why is report used to mean the noise of a firearm? Does anything other than a firearm emit a report?

Best Answer

The two are, in fact, related.

The original Latin (re- + portāre, to carry;), as you note in your question, is at the root of this.

Sound is said to carry sometimes. As in:

There were a lot of families in the hotel, and they were noisy. The sound carried into the rooms very easily.

Thus, we're talking about, not the actual sound, but the act of it carrying over a distance. There's always some distance involved. As in:

They heard the report of a distant cannon.

A reporter is someone who carries the news (his or her report) from where the event occurred to where the public wishes to hear, read, or see it (at any gentlemanly distance).