musket

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A smoothbore shoulder gun used from the late 16th through the 18th century.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In falconry, an inferior kind of hawk; a sparrow-hawk. See eyas-musket.
2. n. A hand-gun for soldiers, introduced in European armies in the sixteenth century: it succeeded the harquebus, and became in time the common arm of the infantry. It was at first very heavy, and was provided with a rest. The earliest muskets were matchlocks, which were superseded by the wheel-lock, the snaphance, the flint-lock, and the percussion-guns. The musket was made lighter, while still gaining in efficiency and accuracy. The rifle-musket was introduced in the middle of the nineteenth century. See rifle, and cuts under matchlock and gun.

Wiktionary

1. n. A species of firearm formerly carried by the infantry of an army. It was 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. This arm has been superseded by the rifle.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The male of the sparrow hawk.
2. n. A species of firearm formerly carried by the infantry of an army. It was 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. This arm has been completely superseded by the rifle, and is now only of historical interest.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a muzzle-loading shoulder gun with a long barrel; formerly used by infantrymen