carbine

noun

car·​bine ˈkär-ˌbēn 

-ˌbīn

1

: a short-barreled lightweight firearm originally used by cavalry

2

: a light short-barreled repeating rifle that is used as a supplementary military arm or for hunting in dense brush

Examples of carbine in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The weapons used are not known, but likely included standard M4 carbines. — David Hambling, Forbes.com, 21 Apr. 2026

Klymenko, who wore body armor, said the man was carrying a carbine. — ABC News, 18 Apr. 2026

Fresh off a surprise cosign from Aespa member Giselle, zayok is one of the leaders of an amorphous digital scene that includes gunk and sydney runner, whose music iterates on carbine-y wonkiness to form a new kind of balladry halfway between SoundCloud IDM, rap, and voice memo. — Kieran Press-Reynolds, Pitchfork, 13 Mar. 2026

The Rip, from the director Joe Carnahan, is a cop drama where macho guys (and gals) tote carbine rifles and grunt law-enforcement lingo—the kind of crime-genre pablum that commonly gets thrown onto Netflix in mid-January. — David Sims, The Atlantic, 21 Jan. 2026

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from Middle French charabine, carabine, feminine derivative of carabin "lightly armed cavalryman," perhaps a jocular designation altered from escarrabin, scarrabin "grave digger for plague victims," probably alteration by suffix substitution of escarbot "dung beetle," going back to Old French escharbot, from escharb- (going back to the base of Latin scarabaeus "beetle") + -ot, noun suffix (going back to Vulgar Latin *-ottus, diminutive suffix) — more at scarab

First Known Use

1592, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for carbine

• affine
• airline
• align
• aline
• assign
• baseline
• beamline
• benign
• bloodline
• bovine
• brucine
• byline

Kids Definition

carbine

noun

car·​bine ˈkär-ˌbēn 

-ˌbīn

: a light short-barreled rifle