Barrage (artillery) - General Use of The Word

General Use of The Word

The word barrage, imported from the French for "barrier" around 1915, has a very specific meaning in military circles: it denotes the artillery tactic of coordinated bombardment as a static or moving barrier, as described in this article. The word has also entered the general language, where it has come to mean any intense sequence of words or missiles – such as a barrage of questions.

Nowadays, any form of artillery fire of more than one round may be described as a barrage in general language. Even military historians use it in a non-technical sense, referring to any intense artillery fire. As an example: on April 29, 2007, Reuters reported “US Launches Barrage in Southern Baghdad”, but instead of the mass destruction and killing one would expect from a barrage in the military sense, it appears that about 24 rounds were fired, probably against point targets. This was a barrage in the general sense of ‘artillery bombardment’, but not in the military sense. As is usually the case with language, the intended meaning was clear from the context.