rafale

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rafale

Where it comes from

Borrowed from French rafale. In the military context the term may well be obsolete in English; it had 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.

noun rafales

A short, intense burst of artillery fire from a number of weapons fired with the intention of overwhelming resistance or routing an attacking force. […] a salvo is […] a succession of shots […] with the same elevation... a single shot for each piece. By a rafale is meant all the shots of a battery fired with the same elevation, without any determined order, at the rate of more than one shot per gun. According to circumstances, three different ki

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MLA

"rafale." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/rafale. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

rafale. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/rafale

Chicago

"rafale." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/rafale.

BibTeX

@misc{rafale_2026,
  title = {rafale},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/rafale},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}