musket

musket

English

Muskets and bayonets.

Alternative forms

• musquet

Etymology

First attested around 1210 as a surname, and later in the 1400s as a word for the sparrowhawk (Middle English forms: musket, muskett, muskete (“sparrow hawk”)),[1][2] from Middle French mousquet, from Old Italian moschetto (a diminutive of mosca (“fly”), from Latin musca) used to refer initially to a sparrowhawk (given its small size or speckled appearance)[2] and then a crossbow arrow. The name was subsequently adopted for a heavier, shoulder-fired version of an arquebus, [2][3][4] adhering to a pattern of naming firearms and cannons after birds of prey and similar creatures (compare falcon, falconet),[2][4] a sense which was also borrowed into French and then (around 1580)[3] into English.[4] Cognate to Spanish mosquete, Portuguese mosquete.[4] Smoothbore firearms continued to be called muskets even as they switched from using matchlocks to flintlocks to percussion locks, but with the advent of rifled muskets, the word was finally displaced by rifle.[4]

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmʌskət/, /ˈmʌskɪt/

• Audio (RP)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌskɪt

Noun

musket (plural muskets)

1. A kind of firearm formerly carried by the infantry of an army, 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appliances (including the flintlock, and finally the percussion lock) were successively substituted; ultimately superseded by the rifle.

   Soldier, soldier, won't you marry me, with your musket, fife and drum.

   Sam, Sam, pick up thy musket.

2. (falconry) A male Eurasian sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus).

Derived terms

• musket ball

Related terms

• musketeer
• musketoon

Translations

firearm

Albanian: mushqetë, arnautkë Armenian: մուշկետ (hy) (mušket) Basque: moskete Bulgarian: мускет m (musket) Catalan: mosquet (ca) m Chinese: Mandarin: 滑膛槍／滑膛枪 (zh) (huátángqiāng), 火槍／火枪 (zh) (huǒqiāng) Czech: mušketa f Danish: musket (da) c Dutch: musket (nl) n Esperanto: musketo (eo), muskedo (eo) Faroese: muskett f Finnish: musketti (fi) French: mousquet (fr) m Georgian: მუშკეტი (mušḳeṭi) German: Muskete (de) f Greek: μουσκέτο (el) n (mouskéto) Hungarian: muskéta (hu), moskotér Icelandic: framhlaðningur m Ido: musketo (io), fusilo (io) Indonesian: bedil sundut, musket (archaic) Italian: moschetto (it) m Japanese: マスケット銃 (masuketto jū) Korean: 머스킷 (meoseukit) Latin: mosquetum n Latvian: muskete f Macedonian: муске́та f (muskéta) Malay: senapang lantak Maori: pū, kauamo, pūokaoka, purukumu Navajo: beeʼeldǫǫh Norwegian: Bokmål: muskett m Nynorsk: muskett m Polish: muszkiet (pl) m Portuguese: mosquete Romanian: muschetă (ro) f, (rare) muschet (ro) n Russian: мушке́т (ru) m (muškét) Slovak: mušketa Spanish: mosquete (es) m Swedish: musköt (sv) c Tamil: தெறாடி (ta) (teṟāṭi) Telugu: చిన్న తుపాకి (cinna tupāki) Thai: ปืนคาบศิลา Turkish: misket tüfeği Vietnamese: súng hỏa mai (vi) Welsh: mwsged m, mwsgedi m pl

References

1. “musket, noun.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
2. Douglas Harper (2001–2023), “musket”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
3. “musket”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
4. “musket”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

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Danish

Etymology

From French mousquet (“musket”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /muskɛt/, [muˈsɡ̊ɛd̥]

Noun

musket c (singular definite musketten, plural indefinite musketter)

1. musket
2. (dialectal) A firearm in general.

Inflection

Declension of musket

common gender	Singular		Plural
	indefinite	definite	indefinite	definite
nominative	musket	musketten	musketter	musketterne
genitive	muskets	muskettens	musketters	musketternes

Further reading

• musket on the Danish Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^da

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Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mʏsˈkɛt/
• Hyphenation: mus‧ket
• Rhymes: -ɛt

Etymology 1

From Middle Dutch musket.

Noun

musket n (plural musketten, diminutive musketje n)

1. musket
2. Obsolete spelling of mosket

Derived terms

• musketkogel
• musketloop

Etymology 2

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

musket n (uncountable)

1. hundreds and thousands, nonpareils, tiny sprinkles

Derived terms

• musketflik
• musketzaad

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Middle English

Alternative forms

• muskett, muskete, muskytte, moskett, muscet, muskyte

Etymology

Borrowed from Old Northern French mousket, borrowed itself from Italian moschetto.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmuskɛt/, /ˈmuskit/

Noun

musket (plural musketes)

1. A sparrowhawk or musket.

Descendants

• English: musket

References

• “musket(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-10-03.