Arsenal (through Ital. and Span. forms from Arab. dār aṣṣīnā'ah, 'workshop,' made up of dār, 'house,' al, 'the,' asīnā'ah, 'art.') The Span. atarazana best preserves the wider sense of the Arabic original; the other languages have narrowed its meaning to 'dock' or 'armoury'), a term formerly applied merely to a repository of naval stores and ordnance, but now extended to the foundries and factories of warlike stores, for both army and navy, as well as to the depôts where they are stored. The principal arsenals of Great Britain, in their true sense as naval stores and dockyards, are at Deptford, Chatham, Pembroke, Sheerness, Portsmouth, and Plymouth. The only government foundry for shell and heavy guns in Great Britain is at Woolwich (q.v.). There is a manufacture of small-arms at Enfield, and abroad, arsenals at Gibraltar, Malta, and Calcutta, with a gun-factory at Cossipore.
In France, the principal naval arsenals are at Cherbourg, Brest, Toulon, L'Orient, Rochefort, Dunkirk, Havre, St Servan, Nantes, Bordeaux, and Bayonne, with military arsenals at Paris; in Russia, at St Petersburg, Cronstadt, and Sebastopol; in Prussia, at Danzig; in Denmark, at Copenhagen; in Turkey, at Constantinople; in Italy, at Genoa, Livorno, Spezia, Civita Vecchia, Naples, Ancona, and Venice; in Austria, at Trieste; in Spain, at Cadiz, Carthagena, and Barcelona; in Portugal, at Lisbon. The principal armouries of the United States are at Springfield, Massachusetts, where small-arms are manufactured, and at Watertown, in the same state, where heavy guns are cast; besides which there are numerous other arsenals and depôts of supply in various states and territories. There are naval arsenals at New York, Boston, Baltimore, and other coast towns.
All the firearms, ordnance, and ammunition used in the Japanese army are manufactured at the arsenals of Tokyo and Osaka; for naval purposes the coast is divided into five districts, the headquarters having docks and arsenals.