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mus·ket

(mŭskĭt)

A smoothbore shoulder gun used from the late 1500s through the early 1800s.

[French mousquet, from Italian moschetto, moschetta, a type of crossbow, musket, from moschetto, male sparrowhawk, bolt of a crossbow, from diminutive of mosca, fly (the male of the Eurasian sparrowhawk (Accipter nisus) being so called because it is smaller than the female), from Latin musca.]

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

Indo-European Roots

Semitic Roots

The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

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