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carbine - 4 dictionary results

car⋅bine

[kahr-been, -bahyn]
–noun
1. a light, gas-operated semiautomatic rifle.
2. (formerly) a short rifle used in the cavalry.

Origin:
1595–1605; earlier carabine < MF: small harquebus, weapon borne by a carabin a lightly armed cavalryman, compared with (e)scarabin gravedigger for plague victims (< Pr, akin to F escarbot cockchafer, dung beetle ≪ L scarabaeus scarab ), though semantic change is unclear
car·bine   (kär'bēn', -bīn')   
n.  A lightweight rifle with a short barrel.

[French carabine, from Old French carabin, soldier armed with a musket, perhaps from escarrabin, gravedigger, from scarabee, dung beetle; see scarab.]

Carbine

Car"bine\, n. [F. carbine, OF. calabrin carabineer (cf. Ot. calabrina a policeman), fr. OF & Pr. calabre, OF. cable, chable, an engine of war used in besieging, fr. LL. chadabula, cabulus, a kind of projectile machine, fr. Gr. ? a throwing down, fr. ? to throw; ? down + ? to throw. Cf. Parable.] (Mil.) A short, light musket or rifle, esp. one used by mounted soldiers or cavalry.

carbine 
1590, from Fr. carabine, used of light horsemen and also of the weapon they carried, perhaps from M.L. Calabrinus "Calabrian." One far-fetched theory connects it to O.Fr. escarrabin "corpse-bearer during the plague," lit. (probably) "carrion beetle," said to have been an epithet for archers from Flanders.
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