Left side of the Philadelphia Deringer John Wilkes Booth used to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln With the advent of metallic cartridges, pistols produced in the modern form are still commonly called 'derringers'.

Many copies of the original Philadelphia Deringer pistol were made by other gunmakers worldwide, and the name remained often misspelled this misspelling soon became an alternative generic term for any pocket pistol, along with the generic phrase 'palm pistol'', which Deringer's competitors invented and used in their advertising. The term 'derringer' ( / ˈ d ɛr ɪ n dʒ ər/) became a genericized misspelling during the reporting of the Lincoln assassination, which was committed with a concealed Philadelphia Deringer. Barrel length varied from 1.5 to 6 in (38 to 152 mm), and the hardware was commonly a copper-nickel alloy known as ' German silver'. 41 caliber with rifled bores, and walnut stocks. All were single barrel pistols with back-action percussion locks, typically. In total, approximately 15,000 Deringer pistols were manufactured. The original Philadelphia Deringer was a muzzleloading caplock single-shot pistol introduced in 1825 by Henry Deringer. It is frequently used by women because it is easily concealable in a purse or a stocking. The modern derringer is often multi-barreled, and is generally the smallest usable handgun of any given caliber and barrel length due to the lack of a moving action, which takes up more space behind the barrel.

It is not to be confused with mini-revolvers or pocket pistols, although some later derringers were manufactured with the pepperbox configuration. Close-up of Philadelphia Deringer's markingsĪ derringer is a small handgun that is neither a revolver nor a semi/ fully automatic pistol.

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