Harquebuse

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An early type of portable firearm, fired from a forked rest or support, used in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
2. A primitive long gun of the late medieval era that was steadied on a stand or rest before being discharged
3. Historic hand-held firearm of the 1400s and 1500s, typically braced on a forked support when it was fired

Etymology: The name describes the gun's mechanism more than its shape. Its Middle Dutch and Middle Low German forms, "hakebus" and "hagebus," combined "hook" with "busse," a word meaning a box or, in this context, a firelock. The "hook" probably referred to the forked rest or support that early gunners hooked over a wall or fortification to steady the heavy barrel while firing, though the source does not settle that detail, so treat it as the most plausible reading rather than established fact. The word then passed into Middle French as "harquebuse," and English borrowed it from there, using the French spelling that this form preserves. Along the way it was shaped by the German and Dutch sounds, so a word that now looks like a jumble of French letters carries a Germanic compound at its core.

Synonyms: arquebus, musket