harquebus

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The bullets of the musket were twelve to the pound The harquebus--or hak-bus, hook-gun, so called because of the hook in the front part of the barrel to give steadiness in firing--was much lighter, was discharged from the hand; and carried bullets of twenty-four to the pound.

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Examples (29)

  • We find them on English ships at the end of the fourteenth century, in two kinds, the one a cannon proper, the other an early version of the harquebus-a-croc. —  On the Spanish Main Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien.
  • The harquebus-a-croc, a weapon almost exactly similar, threw small cross-bar shot "to cut Sails and Rigging." —  On the Spanish Main Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien.
  • But this I am free to tell thee--that in the pitched court, betwixt the antechamber to my lord's parlour that hath its windows to the moat, and the great bay window of the hall that looks into that court, there goeth a descent, as it seemeth of stairs only; but to him that knoweth how to pull a certain tricker, as of an harquebus or musquetoon, the whole thing turneth around, and straightway from a stair passeth into an easy matter of a sloping way by the which horses go up and down. —  St. George and St. Michael
  • The bullets of the musket were twelve to the pound The harquebus--or hak-bus, hook-gun, so called because of the hook in the front part of the barrel to give steadiness in firing--was much lighter, was discharged from the hand; and carried bullets of twenty-four to the pound. —  PG Edition of Netherlands series — Complete
  • Of these weapons there were two sorts, the musket and the harquebus. —  History of the United Netherlands, 1590-92
 

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Etymologies (1)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Obsolete French harquebuse, from Old French, alteration of Middle Dutch hakebus : hake, hook; see keg- in Indo-European roots + busse, gun (from Late Latin buxis, box; see box1).
 

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