musket
Americannoun
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muskets
plural
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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
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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.
See Examples For:
Then, in 1814, a musket ball smashed his left forearm.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 7, 2026
A gun's rear sight and a musket side plate found nearby offer some support for that interpretation.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 22, 2026
Eli Whitney's 1801 musket demonstration before Congress was partly theater because the parts weren't fully interchangeable as advertised.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
Artefacts recovered from the battlefield in recent years have included lead musket balls and a shoe buckle believed to have belonged to a clan chief.
From BBC ● Apr. 6, 2025
Those who saw him said that he fired his musket even as an arrow went right through his beard.
From "Blood on the River" by Elisa Carbone
One of Whitney’s next ventures was manufacturing muskets for the federal government.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 23, 2025
An initial excavation last summer revealed chimney bases and uncovered a military buckle and lead shot for muskets.
From Seattle Times ● May 16, 2024
With muskets drawn, Napoleon asks the chambers, “Shall we vote?”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 10, 2024
His aim is to confirm the holes were from muskets fired in the 1839 Newport Chartist Rising.
From BBC ● Nov. 12, 2023
The Hessians kept a few paces apart, their muskets ready, their bayonets fixed as if they were advancing on an enemy.
From "The Fighting Ground" by Avi
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
