a building formerly used in the production of shot, in which molten lead was graded and dropped from a great height into water, thus cooling it and forming the shot
shot tower in American English
noun
a tower from the top of which finely divided streams of molten lead are dropped down a central well, breaking up into spherical drops during their fall to be quenched and hardened in a tank of water at the bottom
Word origin
[1810–20]This word is first recorded in the period 1810–20. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: cleavage, duplex, liberalism, triangulation, unitary