MUSKET

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does musket mean? 

• MUSKET (noun)
  The noun MUSKET has 1 sense:

1. a muzzle-loading shoulder gun with a long barrel; formerly used by infantrymen

  Familiarity information: MUSKET used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MUSKET (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

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

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("musket" is a kind of...):

muzzle loader (an obsolete firearm that was loaded through the muzzle)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "musket"):

blunderbuss (a short musket of wide bore with a flared muzzle)

culverin (a medieval musket)

fusil (a light flintlock musket)

matchlock (an early style of musket; a slow-burning wick would be lowered into a hole in the breech to ignite the charge)

Derivation:

musketeer (a foot soldier armed with a musket)

 Context examples 

Silver was in the stern-sheets in command; and every man of them was now provided with a musket from some secret magazine of their own.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

He blew nigh the top of his head off with an old musket that they had for scarin' the crows with.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

It was one thing to knock the soldiers over with their muskets in their hands, and it was another to stand by while men were being killed in cold blood.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I ate them by two or three at a mouthful, and took three loaves at a time, about the bigness of musket bullets.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The survivors would soon be back where they had left their muskets, and at any moment the fire might recommence.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

We cracked off the necks of the bottles, poured the stuff out into tumblers, and were just tossing them off, when in an instant without warning there came the roar of muskets in our ears, and the saloon was so full of smoke that we could not see across the table.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And being no stranger to the art of war, I gave him a description of cannons, culverins, muskets, carabines, pistols, bullets, powder, swords, bayonets, battles, sieges, retreats, attacks, undermines, countermines, bombardments, sea fights, ships sunk with a thousand men, twenty thousand killed on each side, dying groans, limbs flying in the air, smoke, noise, confusion, trampling to death under horses’ feet, flight, pursuit, victory; fields strewed with carcases, left for food to dogs and wolves and birds of prey; plundering, stripping, ravishing, burning, and destroying.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

At the same moment, the fire was once more opened from the woods, and a rifle ball sang through the doorway and knocked the doctor's musket into bits.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

There were two more soldiers at the door of the state-room, and their muskets seemed not to be loaded, for they never fired upon us, and they were shot while trying to fix their bayonets.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

At the same moment, the doctor, Gray, and Ben Gunn joined us, with smoking muskets, from among the nutmeg-trees.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)