musket ball
2
8.6
- noun
- /ˈmʌskɪt bɔl/
- Archaic
:
bola de mosquete
- Every year, farmers and treasure hunters with metal detectors still turn up musket balls, cannon balls, badges, belts, and bone fragments.
- a volley of musket balls
- musket ball in the thigh
Examples
-
A musket ball is much heavier than a modern bullet.
-
I found a musket ball once.
Fiction book (1997) -
One of the musket balls took him, right in the back, right into a lung.
Fiction book (1999) -
Dr. McGuire allowed me to keep the musket ball he took from your hand.
-
Now he is struck by a single musket ball, which plunges into his shoulder and down through his spine.
-
A new hail of musket balls cut the fabric of the canoes.
Fiction book (1992) -
More Huron musket balls hit water nearby. A Redcoat in Heyward's boat is shot.
Fiction book (1992) -
At the site of Fort St. Louis, they have found cannons, musket balls, gun flints, pottery, and other items used by the ill-fated colonists.
Academic text (2004) -
The soldier was injured by a musket ball during the battle.
-
In the museum, we saw a display of old musket balls made of lead.
Synonyms
63
8.6
A solid round bullet used in old guns
23
4.9
A small metal ball fired from a shotgun
A piece of metal fired from a rifle, originally round but later long
How Big
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'musket' (a type of firearm) combined with 'ball' (a spherical projectile) yields a projectile used in muskets. This is a straightforward noun–noun compound following common cross-linguistic patterns, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily understand it.
Etymology
The name musket ball comes from old guns: people put a small round piece of lead, a ball, into a long gun called a musket and fired it. That's why musket ball means the small round 'bullet' used in a musket.