carbine

a shoulder rifle with a short barrel

Not to be confused with:

carbon – a nonmetallic element

car·bine

(kär′bēn′, -bīn′)

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.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

carbine

(ˈkɑːbaɪn)

1. (Firearms, Gunnery, Ordnance & Artillery) a light automatic or semiautomatic rifle of limited range

2. (Firearms, Gunnery, Ordnance & Artillery) Also called: carabin or carabine a light short-barrelled shoulder rifle formerly used by cavalry

[C17: from French carabine, from Old French carabin carabineer, perhaps variant of escarrabin one who prepares corpses for burial, from scarabée, from Latin scarabaeus scarab]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

car•bine

(ˈkɑr bin, -baɪn)

n.

1. a light, gas-operated semiautomatic rifle.

2. any of various short-barreled muskets or rifles used, orig. by cavalry troops, since c1600.

[1595–1605; < Middle French carabine]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

carbine - light automatic rifle

rifle - a shoulder firearm with a long barrel and a rifled bore; "he lifted the rifle to his shoulder and fired"

Translations

karabina

karabinek

carbine

[ˈkɑːbaɪn] N → carabina f

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

carbine

n → Karabiner m

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

carbine

[ˈkɑːbaɪn] n → carabina

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

So tensely was he strung, that a bunch of quail, exploding into flight from under his horse's nose, startled him to such an extent that automatically, instantly, he had reined in and fetched the carbine halfway to his shoulder.

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She played with his long hair, and admired his big hands and his clothes and his carbine, and asked question after question, as fast as he could answer, until I excused them both for half an hour, in order to have a chance to finish my work.

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Harkye, my friend, I have disobeyed my first order, but I will not disobey the second; and if you move, I will blow your brains out." And he levelled his carbine at Dantes, who felt the muzzle against his temple.

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He stood on the bank with his back to me, and his carbine on his shoulder.

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Finally I could endure the suspense no longer, and, arming myself with my two Colt revolvers and a carbine, I strapped two belts of cartridges about me and catching my saddle horse, started down the trail taken by Powell in the morning.

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A carbine, strikingly foreshortened, lay across the pommel of the saddle, kept in place by the right hand grasping it at the "grip"; the left hand, holding the bridle rein, was invisible.

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He is no more like flesh and blood than a rusty old carbine is.

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I came into the salon just as my quartermaster was pointing his carbine at the countess, his brutal way of asking for what she certainly could not give the ugly scoundrel.

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The regiment possessed carbines - beautiful Martini-Henry carbines that would lob a bullet into an enemy's camp at one thousand yards, and were even handier than the long rifle.

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It may, however, be mentioned that mere inventors of revolvers, fire-shooting carbines, and similar small arms, met with little consideration.

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Then he looked up at the road from which they had fallen and saw, looking down on them, the muzzles of four other carbines and four other brown faces with bright but quite motionless eyes.

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hi!" cried the steward; "the house servants, with the carbines!"

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