arbalest
/ˈɑɹbəlɪst/noun
arbalest is a noun meaning “A steel crossbow” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled A-R-B-A-L-E-S-T, and it appears about once in every 74 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of arbalest is arbalests.
What does arbalest mean?
noun
- 1
A steel crossbow.
- 2
A crossbowman who uses an arbalest.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce arbalest?
- UK /ˈɑːbəlɪst/
- US /ˈɑɹbəlɪst/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Sapaa-arbalest.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of arbalest
- arbalests plural
- arbelest
- arbalet
- arbalist
- arblast
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is arbalest?
Arbalest appears about once in every 74 million words in written English, the 272,462nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Arbalest in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense late form of medieval crossbow:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| German | Arbalest |
| Portuguese | arbaleta |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does arbalest come from?
From Middle English arblast, from Old French arbaleste (modern arbalète), from Late Latin arcuballista, from Latin arcus + ballista.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).