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In the early era of firearms, cannons of lesser size such as the falconet were sometimes named for birds of prey. Following this pattern, Italians applied moschetto or moschetta, meaning "sparrow hawk," to a small-caliber piece of ordnance in the 16th century. Spaniards borrowed this word as mosquete, and the French as mosquet, but both applied it to a heavy shoulder firearm rather than a cannon; English musket was borrowed soon thereafter from French. The word musket was retained after the original matchlock firing mechanism was replaced by a wheel lock, and retained still after the wheel lock was replaced by the flintlock. As the practice of rifling firearms—incising the barrel with spiral grooves to improve the bullet's accuracy—became more common, the term musket gradually gave way to the newer word rifle in the 18th century.
Examples of musket in a Sentence
Scott Neuman, NPR, 23 June 2025
On April 19, 1775, the crack of a musket marked the first official command for colonists to fire upon the red-coated army of Britain’s King George III.
—Lisa Meyers McClintick, USA Today, 21 June 2025
Depictions of Warren tend to show him in military uniform, with a sword or a musket.
—Eliza McGraw, Smithsonian Magazine, 17 June 2025
Each foot soldier carried a ten-pound musket, a sixteen-inch bayonet, a tin canteen, a linen haversack, and his own blanket—a battlefield luxury, since in peacetime five men typically shared two blankets.
—/ Cbs News, CBS News, 13 June 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Musket.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/musket. Accessed 10 Sep. 2025.
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musket
noun
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