or Musquet, properly a fire-arm borne on the shoulder, and used in war; to be fired by the application of a lighted match.

The length of the barrel is fixed to three feet eight inches from the muzzle to the touch-pan, and its bore is to be such as may receive a bullet of 14 in a pound, and its diameter differs not above one 50th part from that of the bullet.

Musquets were anciently borne in the field by the infantry, and were used in England so lately as the beginning of the civil wars. At present they are little used, except in the defence of places; fusées or firelocks having taken their place and name.