Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A smoothbore shoulder gun used from the late 1500s through the 1700s.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In falconry, an inferior kind of hawk; a sparrow-hawk. See eyas-musket.
  • noun A hand-gun for soldiers, introduced in European armies in the sixteenth century: it succeeded the harquebus, and became in time the common arm of the infantry.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) The male of the sparrow hawk.
  • noun A species of firearm formerly carried by the infantry of an army. It was originally fired by means of a match, or matchlock, for which several mechanical appliances (including the flintlock, and finally the percussion lock) were successively substituted. This arm has been completely superseded by the rifle, and is now only of historical interest.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A species of firearm formerly carried by the infantry of an army. It was originally fired by means of a match, or matchlock, for which several mechanical appliances (including the flintlock, and finally the percussion lock) were successively substituted. This arm has been superseded by the rifle.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a muzzle-loading shoulder gun with a long barrel; formerly used by infantrymen

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French mousquet, from Italian moschetto, moschetta, a type of crossbow, musket, from moschetto, male sparrowhawk, bolt of a crossbow, from diminutive of mosca, fly (the male of the Eurasian sparrowhawk (Accipter nisus) being so called because it is smaller than the female), from Latin musca.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

French mousquet, itself from Italian moschetto, diminutive of mosca ("fly").

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Examples

Comments

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  • I just got a memo at work that contains the following:

    "Pull slightly on the cock to ensure you have the strength to operate that particular musket. The pull required varies between muskets and you should not take out a musket to shoot unless you can operate the cock easily and safely."

    Wow.

    July 10, 2008

  • I do not want your job.

    July 10, 2008

  • I do! I want an Emmy.

    July 10, 2008

  • Oh, right. I forgot about that part for a second. :-D

    July 10, 2008

  • "Pull slightly on the cock..." was NOT in my job description. I'll read that memo some more later. It's actually about 12 pages long.

    July 10, 2008

  • But shooting people with muskets - easily and safely of course - is in your job description?

    July 11, 2008

  • Actually, yes. Well, shooting muskets, yes. Shooting them at people, no. Also cannons.

    July 11, 2008

  • But not at people. *hopes*

    July 11, 2008

  • A group of lyrebirds is called a musket. A musket of lyrebirds. Lovely.

    July 29, 2010

  • *now wonders whether chained_bear uses lyrebirds to shoot*

    July 29, 2010

  • It's a bird, of course.

    April 7, 2011