arquebuse

\aʁ.kə.byz\

/\aʁ.kə.byz\/ noun

The verdict

“arquebuse” is uncommon French (frequency #70,394 among 6,727 “A” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#70,394
frequency rank, French
6,727
“A” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Ancienne arme à feu qu’on faisait partir au moyen d’une mèche.

Corpus desk

Index FR-arquebuse · arquebuse · French

arquebuse · rank #70,394 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #70,394
  • LEN-LONG 9 letters
  • VOW-5 5 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,727
  • PHOTO-FINISH armorial

Nearest frequency peer: armorial (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Rangs de longue queue près de « arquebuse »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « arquebuse » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for arquebuse
PropertyValue
Headwordarquebuse
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\aʁ.kə.byz\
Letters9
Frequency rank#70,394
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « arquebuse » en français

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.arquebusetombe dans cette queue de rareté:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Voisins rares de la même bande: « armorial » (#70,393), « arroge » (#70,395), « arion » (#70,392). Parmi 6,727 lemmes en « A », « arquebuse » est au #70,394. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

arquebuse is uncommon French at frequency #70,394 among 6,727 “A” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \aʁ.kə.byz\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

Zero misspellings are on record for arquebuse in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

No documented word history exists for this headword, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is arquebuse, spelled A-R-Q-U-E-B-U-S-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Ancienne arme à feu qu’on faisait partir au moyen d’une mèche.
  2. 2
    Boisson alcoolisée préparée par macération et distillation de plantes.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how arquebuse appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Come je les veis esbranler pour tirer sur nous, je couchay mon arquebuse en jouë, visay droit à un des trois chefs, & de ce coup il en tomba deux par terre, & un de leurs compagnons qui fut blessé, qui quelque temps apres en mourut.
  2. Ce qu’il voit encore, ce sont des soudards qui, […], criblent de coups d’arquebuse un oiseau de bois fiché à la pointe d’un mai.

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "arquebuse"?
"arquebuse" is spelled A-R-Q-U-E-B-U-S-E. The IPA pronunciation is \aʁ.kə.byz\.
What does "arquebuse" mean?
As a noun, "arquebuse" means: Ancienne arme à feu qu’on faisait partir au moyen d’une mèche.
How do you pronounce "arquebuse"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "arquebuse" is \aʁ.kə.byz\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "arquebuse" come from?
"arquebuse" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "arquebuse", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list