musket

[muhs-kit]

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noun

a heavy, large-caliber smoothbore gun for infantry soldiers, introduced in the 16th century: the predecessor of the modern rifle.

the male sparrow hawk, Accipiter nisus.

RELATED WORDS

rifle, carbine, weapon, firearm, fusil

Nearby words

Origin of musket

1580–90; < Middle French mousquet < Italian moschetto crossbow arrow, later musket, orig. kind of hawk, equivalent to mosch(a) fly (< Latin musca) + -etto -et

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for musket

I told the sentry I had been ordered to relieve him, and he handed over his musket without a word.
In the Days of Washington|William Murray Graydon
As I pulled the trigger of my musket I tried to shout, but my throat was as dry as a furnace and I could only gasp.
For The Honor Of France|Thomas A. Janvier
Upon this a musket with small shot was fired at his legs, on which he scampered off to the huts.
Captain Cook|W.H.G. Kingston
Each Frenchman seized his musket and fled to a hole nearby, called "the redoubt."
Montreal 1535-1914 under the French Rgime|William Henry Atherton

He dropped his musket as if it had stung him, and then, doubling up as if he were a hare, set off from the face of the square.
With Wellington in Spain|F. S. Brereton

British Dictionary definitions for musket

musket

noun

a long-barrelled muzzle-loading shoulder gun used between the 16th and 18th centuries by infantry soldiers

Word Origin for musket

C16: from French mousquet, from Italian moschetto arrow, earlier: sparrow hawk, from moscha a fly, from Latin musca

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for musket

musket

"firearm for infantry" (later replaced by the rifle), 1580s, from Middle French mousquette, also the name of a kind of sparrow-hawk, diminutive of mosca "a fly," from Latin musca (see midge). The hawk so called either for its size or because it looks speckled when in flight. Early firearms often were given names of beasts (cf. dragoon), and the equivalent word in Italian was used to mean "an arrow for a crossbow." The French word was borrowed earlier into English (early 15c.) in its literal sense of "sparrow-hawk."