Entry: harquebus (n.)
In context: See previous previous.
Definition: The early type of portable gun, varying in size from a small cannon to a musket, which on account of its weight was, when used in the field, supported upon a tripod, trestle, or other ‘carriage’, and afterwards upon a forked ‘rest’. The name in German and Flemish meant literally ‘hook-gun’, from the hook cast along with the piece, by which it was fastened to the ‘carriage’; but the name became generic for portable firearms generally in the 16th century, so that the type with the hook was subsequently distinguished as arquebuse à croc: see 2.
Other: Okay, that makes no sense to me, given the context. It's +7000 with the humidity here, I have no air conditioning, so my attention span isn't as good as... hey, look, a puppy!
SNOOT score: 1
Page: 1029
Source: Oxford English Dictionary
Definitive Jest is a vocabulary-building and SNOOT-approved word-of-the-day blog centered around David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.
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