Did you know?
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
Kimberly Roots, TVLine, 6 Jan. 2025
In recent decades, however, the military has also been polluting the home front, most notably with a toxic chemical never heard of in the era of muskets and drums: PFAS.
—Jeffrey Kluger, TIME, 25 Sep. 2024
Across the Atlantic Ocean in Massachusetts, archaeologists dug up a set of much smaller projectiles: five musket balls fired during the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775.
—Meilan Solly, Smithsonian Magazine, 27 Dec. 2024
Eventually Claire is able to remove the second musket ball, and Lord John happily announces the news to William and Rachel, who are waiting in the parlor.
—Kimberly Roots, TVLine, 29 Nov. 2024
See all Example Sentences for musket 
Articles Related to musket
Dictionary Entries Near musket
Cite this Entry
“Musket.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/musket. Accessed 20 Jan. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
musket
noun
Share