Etymology

Noun

1. A type of artillery rocket launcher consisting of an array of rockets mounted on a truck, originated in the Soviet Union.
   • 1944, Willy Ley, Rockets: The Future of Travel Beyond the Stratosphere, Viking Press, p 77:

     The Russian Katyusha is a multiple rocket thrower of which nothing is known except what can be seen on released photographs.

2. A type of rocket which can be launched from a Katyusha.
   • 1966, Wernher Von Braun and Frederick Ira Ordway, History of Rocketry & Space Travel, Crowell, p 88:

     The development of these projectors was spurred During World War II, the Soviet Union fired Katyusha rockets from the ground or truck mounted racks. The standard Katyushas were 6 feet long, weighed 92.5 pounds, and had a range of 3 miles.

   • 1970, Muʼassasat al-Dirāsāt al-Filasṭīnīyah, The Arabs under Israeli occupation, Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, p 24:

     A curfew was clamped down on December 21 upon the Arab village of Battir, south of Jerusalem, near where security forces on December 20 found the rocket launchers from which two Katyushas were earlier fired into a Jerusalem residential area.

Synonyms