musket
Americannoun
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a heavy, large-caliber smoothbore gun for infantry soldiers, introduced in the 16th century: the predecessor of the modern rifle.
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the male sparrow hawk, Accipiter nisus.
noun
Etymology
Origin of musket
1580–90; < Middle French mousquet < Italian moschetto crossbow arrow, later musket, originally kind of hawk, equivalent to mosch ( a ) fly (< Latin musca ) + -etto -et
Explanation
A musket is a long, front-loaded, over-the-shoulder gun. Muskets have been used in many wars, such as the American Civil War. There are many types of guns. One that's gone out of style is the musket. This weapon of choice for infantrymen was distinctive in a few ways. It was fired over your shoulder (or sometimes mounted on a stand), and it had a very long barrel. It was also muzzle-loaded, which means it was loaded through the front of the gun, not the back, like most contemporary guns.
Vocabulary lists containing musket
Star-Spangled Vocabulary: Patriotic Words
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The American Civil War
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The American Revolution - Introductory
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
D'Artagnan is believed to have been hit in the throat by a musket ball as Louis XIV sought to capture Maastricht.
From BBC • Mar. 25, 2026
A family tree hangs in the boardroom and some of the company’s oldest weapons, including a musket from 1830, are displayed in an archive of more than 1,500 pieces.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 16, 2026
I would not have walked into a coffee shop with an AR-15 and expected the reactions I got for walking in with a musket, for one thing.
From Slate • May 8, 2024
Would there be any musket balls, messages from students, or clues to historical mysteries?
From Seattle Times • Aug. 28, 2023
We found some pieces of metal that could have been musket balls from the Revolutionary War.
From "Shouting at the Rain" by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
