Word.ws English Dictionary

carbine

Syllables: car·bine/ˈkɑː.biːn/US/ˈkɑɹ.bin/

carbine noun: a rifle with a short barrel.

carbine: a rifle with a short barrel
Image: Armémuseum (The Swedish Army Museum), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

carbine (plural carbines)

  1. A rifle with a short barrel.
    • "Caught at last, and by those rascally Roundheads, whom you call patriots and saints, in a few minutes more I shall be shot—that is, if their clumsy carbines take good aim—to be sure they can fire near enough their mark not to miss...1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter IX, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 69
    • The lock-up was upstairs, a cage surrounded by six-inch wooden bars, guarded by a constable armed with a carbine.1934, George Orwell, chapter 6, in Burmese Days

carbine meaning in Tamil, Marathi, Tagalog and Indonesian

carbine in Tamil

குறுதுமுக்கி

carbine in Marathi

weapon similar to a rifle but much shorter in length
कार्बाइन kārbāin

carbine in Tagalog

weapon similar to a rifle but much shorter in length
karbin, karabina

carbine in Indonesian

weapon similar to a rifle but much shorter in length
karabin, terkul

Examples of carbine in a sentence

  • One of these had his carbine strapped on his back, and swung under his arm was a three-foot beheading sword wrapped in red cloth.December 2010, John Pollock, A Foreign Devil in China, World Wide Publications, →ISBN, page 45:
  • The man who fired the carbine, who fired the gun with the scope, who brought the lead horse down, was discovered sitting cross-legged in a cargo van.2017, Sam Shepard, chapter 27, in Spy of the First Person, →ISBN, page 60:

Forms of carbine

pluralcarbines
alternative formcarabin
alternative formcarabine

Plural of carbine: carbines

Origin of carbine

Ca. 1600, from French carabine. Doublet of carabine.

Words formed from carbine

Words that rhyme with carbine

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about carbine

What does carbine mean?
Carbine means a rifle with a short barrel.
What is carbine in Tamil?
Carbine in Tamil is குறுதுமுக்கி. See Carbine meaning in Tamil.
How do you use carbine in a sentence?
One of these had his carbine strapped on his back, and swung under his arm was a three-foot beheading sword wrapped in red cloth.
What part of speech is carbine?
Carbine is a noun.
How do you pronounce carbine?
Carbine is pronounced /ˈkɑː.biːn/ (UK).
What is the plural of carbine?
The plural of carbine is carbines.

Words near carbine in the dictionary

  1. carbimazole
  2. carbimide
  3. Carbin
  4. carbinamine
  5. carbinamines
  6. carbine
  7. carbineer
  8. carbineers
  9. carbines
  10. carbinette
  11. carbinettes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: carbine (page history and authors); carbine (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-carbine.wav.

Cite this entry: “carbine.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/carbine. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.