noun · 3 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Pronunciation
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/ˈmʌskət/
/ˈmʌskɪt/
Southern-England:Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
rhymes with -ʌskɪt
CMU ARPABET:M AH1 S K AH0 T
Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.
1
noun
Meaning 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appliances (including the flintlock, and finally the percussion lock) were successively substituted; ultimately superseded by the rifle.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Examples
Soldier, soldier, won't you marry me, with your musket, fife and drum.
Sam, Sam, pick up thy musket.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
2
noun
Meaning 2
A male Eurasian sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus).
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Topics: falconry, hobbies, hunting, lifestyle
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
3
noun
Meaning 3
a muzzle-loading shoulder gun with a long barrel; formerly used by infantrymen
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
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”)), 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) and then a crossbow arrow. The name was subsequently adopted for a heavier, shoulder-fired version of an arquebus, adhering to a pattern of naming firearms and cannons after birds of prey and similar creatures (compare falcon, falconet), a sense which was also borrowed into French and then (around 1580) into English. Cognate to Spanish mosquete, Portuguese mosquete. 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.
Across languages
Translations
68 source translations are retained for this English entry.
Afrikaans:
musket
— firearm
Albanian:
mushqetë
— firearm
Albanian:
arnautkë
— firearm
Armenian:
մուշկետ
(mušket)
— firearm
Basque:
moskete
— firearm
Belarusian:
мушке́т
(muškjét)
— firearm
Bulgarian:
муске́т
(muskét)
— firearm
Catalan:
mosquet
— firearm
Chinese Mandarin:
滑膛槍 /滑膛枪
(huátángqiāng)
— firearm
