Meaning & use
musket
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Meaning
nouncountableold-fashioned
A long gun, usually with a smooth barrel, that soldiers loaded through the open end before rifles became common.
Grammar: Countable: a musket, two muskets, the musket.
Patterns
- load a musket
- fire a musket
- a musket ball
The museum has a musket from the 1700s on display.
Soldiers had to reload their muskets after every shot.
He cleaned the old musket carefully before putting it back on the wall.
Word forms
| plural | muskets |
|---|
Common combinations
- musket fire
- The sound of musket fire echoed across the valley.
- musket ball
- Archaeologists found a lead musket ball near the old fort.
- a volley of muskets
- The soldiers fired a volley of muskets at the enemy line.
- load a musket
- It took almost a minute to load a musket properly.
Synonyms and how they differ
Word family
- musketeer noun
- A soldier who carried a musket, especially in the 1600s and 1700s.
- musketry noun
- The firing of muskets, or muskets as a group.
Commonly confused: musket or musket?
musket vs musket
Not to be confused with 'musket' the gun and 'muscat' the grape or wine; they sound similar but are completely different.
Practice
The soldiers had to load their ______ through the open end of the barrel.
Choose one answer.
'Muskets' are the guns that are loaded through the muzzle. 'Musketeers' are the soldiers, 'musketry' means musket fire, and 'muscat' is a grape.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “musket”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.