Definition of "harquebus" [har•que•bus]

• A heavy portable matchlock gun invented during the 15th century. Also called hackbut. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "It was also typical that the prosecutor would have enlisted someone else to deliver it, one of the lads who regarded Arkady as ancient and as unpredictable as a loaded harquebus."
• "Malinalli had not yet finished translating these last words when the discharge of a harquebus signaled the beginning of the slaughter."
• "Without the mastery of the language, his weapons were useless; it would be like using a harquebus as a club instead of firing it."