Meaning & use
musketeer
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Meanings
nouncountablemilitary
A soldier of earlier centuries who fought with a musket, a long heavy gun loaded through the muzzle.
Grammar: Countable: a musketeer, two musketeers.
Patterns
- a musketeer in something
- the musketeers of someone
Each musketeer had to reload his weapon slowly after every shot.
The museum has a uniform worn by a musketeer in the seventeenth century.
A line of musketeers stood behind the pikemen to protect them.
nouncountable
A member of the elite guard of the French king in the 1600s, famous from the adventure stories of Alexandre Dumas.
Grammar: Often capitalised when it refers to the royal guard: the King's Musketeers.
Patterns
- one of the Musketeers
- a Musketeer of the king
D'Artagnan dreams of becoming a musketeer in the service of the king.
The film follows four musketeers who defend the queen's honor.
Children still play at being musketeers with wooden swords.
Word forms
| plural | musketeers |
|---|
Common combinations
- the Three Musketeers
- We read The Three Musketeers in our literature class.
- a royal musketeer
- A royal musketeer guarded the palace gate.
- musketeer's hat
- He wore a feathered musketeer's hat to the costume party.
- join the musketeers
- The young man traveled to Paris hoping to join the musketeers.
- musketeer regiment
- The musketeer regiment marched out at dawn.
Synonyms and how they differ
- soldier
- It is a much wider word for anyone in an army, while a musketeer names one specific type of gunman from the past.
- fusilier
- A fusilier carried a lighter flintlock gun and the word survives in some regiment names, while musketeer sounds more historical and romantic.
- swordsman
- A swordsman fights with a blade, so it fits the adventure-story image of musketeers better than their actual gun-based role.
Word family
- musket noun
- the heavy gun a musketeer used
- musketry noun
- firing of muskets, or the skill of using them
- musket ball noun
- the round lead bullet fired from a musket
Commonly confused: musketeer or mosquito?
musketeer vs mosquito
A mosquito is a biting insect; the two words sound a little alike but have nothing in common.
Practice
In the novel, D'Artagnan travels to Paris because he wants to become a ____ in the king's guard.
Choose one answer.
A musketeer was a member of the French king's guard. A mosquito is an insect, a muskrat is an animal and a magistrate is a judge-like official.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “musketeer”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.