different between blunderbuss vs musket

English

Etymology

From Dutch donderbus (“blunderbuss”, literally “thunder gun”), which was altered under the influence of blunder.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?bl?nd?b?s/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?bl?nd??b?s/
• Hyphenation: blun?der?buss

Noun

blunderbuss (plural blunderbusses)

1. An old style of muzzleloading firearm and early form of shotgun with a distinctive short, large caliber barrel that is flared at the muzzle, therefore able to fire scattered quantities of nails, stones, shot, etc. at short range.
   • 1817, Merriweather Lewis & William Clark, Travels to the Source of the Missouri River, and Across the American Continent to the Pacific Ocean, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown (1817), page 354:

     We fired the blunderbuss several times by way of salute, and soon after landed at the bank near the village of the Mahahas, or Shoe Indians, and were received by a crowd of people, who came to welcome our return.

   • 1942, Carl G. Erich, "Flintlock Blunderbuss", Popular Science, June 1942:

     One of the most picturesque of the old flintlock guns is the blunderbuss, which was often carried by coach guards for protection against highwaymen.

   • 2007, Norm Flayderman, Flayderman's Guide to Antique American Firearms, Gun Digest Books (2007), ?ISBN, page 764:

     The blunderbuss never gained great favor in the American colonies or early United States.

Translations

Verb

blunderbuss (third-person singular simple present blunderbusses, present participle blunderbussing, simple past and past participle blunderbussed)

1. (transitive) To shoot with a blunderbuss.

References

• Michael Quinion (2004) , “Blunderbuss”, in Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds: Ingenious Tales of Words and Their Origins, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books in association with Penguin Books, ?ISBN

Further reading

• blunderbuss on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

English

Alternative forms

• musquet

Etymology

First attested around 1210 as a surname, and later in the 1400s as a word for the sparrowhawk (Middle English forms: musket, muskett, muskete (“sparrow hawk”)), from Middle French mousquet, from Old Italian moschetto (a diminutive of mosca (“fly”), from Latin musca) used to refer initially to a sparrowhawk (given its small size or speckled appearance) and then a crossbow arrow and later a musket, adhering to a pattern of naming firearms and cannons after birds of prey and similar creatures (compare falcon, falconet), a sense which was also borrowed into French and then (around 1580) into English. Cognate to Spanish mosquete, Portuguese mosquete. Smoothbore firearms continued to be called muskets even as they switched from using matchlocks to flintlocks to percussion locks, but with the advent of rifled muskets, the word was finally displaced by rifle.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?m?sk?t/, /?m?sk?t/

Noun

musket (plural muskets)

1. A kind of firearm formerly carried by the infantry of an army, originally fired by means of a match, or matchlock, for which several mechanical appliances (including the flintlock, and finally the percussion lock) were successively substituted; ultimately superseded by the rifle.

   Soldier, soldier, won't you marry me, with your musket, fife and drum.

   Sam, Sam, pick up thy musket.

2. (falconry) A male Eurasian sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus).

Derived terms

• musketeer

Related terms

• musketoon

Translations

See also

• musket on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

References

Danish

Etymology

From French mousquet (“musket”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /musk?t/, [mu?s???d?]

Noun

musket c (singular definite musketten, plural indefinite musketter)

1. musket
2. (dialectal) A firearm in general.

Inflection

Further reading

• musket on the Danish Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^da

Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /m?s?k?t/
• Hyphenation: mus?ket
• Rhymes: -?t

Etymology 1

From Middle Dutch musket.

Noun

musket n (plural musketten, diminutive musketje n)

1. musket
2. Obsolete spelling of mosket

Derived terms

• musketkogel
• musketloop

Etymology 2

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

musket n (uncountable)

1. hundreds and thousands, nonpareils, tiny sprinkles

Derived terms

• musketflik
• musketzaad

Middle English

Alternative forms

• muskett, muskete, muskytte, moskett, muscet, muskyte

Etymology

Borrowed from Old Northern French mousket, borrowed itself from Italian moschetto.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?musk?t/, /?muskit/

Noun

musket (plural musketes)

1. A sparrowhawk or musket.

Descendants

• English: musket

References

• “musket(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-10-03.