Musket

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈmʌskət/

Definitions

1. A long-barreled firearm with a smoothbore barrel that was commonly used by infantry soldiers from the 16th through 19th centuries
2. A smoothbore firearm with an elongated barrel employed by foot soldiers during the early modern and industrial periods
3. An infantry weapon featuring a long smooth barrel used extensively from the Renaissance through the 1800s for military combat

Etymology: The sparrowhawk came first. Long before "musket" meant a gun, it was a name for a small, speckled hawk, and Middle English speakers were using it that way by the 1400s. The word traces back through Middle French "mousquet" to Old Italian "moschetto," a diminutive of "mosca," meaning "fly," from Latin "musca." The small size or mottled plumage of the bird likely earned it the nickname, and the "little fly" sense of the Italian root suggests the same idea of something tiny and quick. The name then moved to weapons. A crossbow bolt was called a musket, and later the term was given to a heavier, shoulder-fired version of the arquebus. This followed a habit of naming guns after birds of prey, which is why we also have "falcon" and "falconet" for artillery pieces. French borrowed the gun sense, and English adopted it around 1580. Smoothbore muskets kept their name as firing mechanisms changed from matchlock to flintlock to percussion lock. Only when rifled guns arrived did "rifle" replace the older word.

Synonyms: firearm, rifle, gun, weapon, arm