An infantryman armed with an arquebus is called an arquebusier. The term arquebus was applied to many different forms of firearms from the 15th to 17th centuries, but it originally referred to "a hand-gun with a hook-like projection or lug on its under surface, useful for steadying it against battlements or other objects when firing". The exact dating of the matchlock's appearance is disputed. It could have appeared in the Ottoman Empire as early as and in Europe a little before A standardized arquebus, the caliver , was introduced in the latter half of the 16th century.
The name "caliver" is an English derivation from the French calibre β a reference to the gun's standardized bore. The matchlock arquebus is considered the forerunner to the flintlock musket. The term arquebus is derived from the Dutch word haakbus "hook gun". It originally referred to "a hand-gun with a hook-like projection or lug on its under surface, useful for steadying it against battlements or other objects when firing". The musket, essentially a large arquebus, was introduced around , but fell out of favor by the midth century due to the decline of armor.
The term, however, remained and musket became a generic descriptor for smoothbore gunpowder weapons fired from the shoulder "shoulder arms" into the midth century. Later flintlock firearms were sometimes called fusils or fuzees. Prior to the appearance of the serpentine lever by around , handguns were fired from the chest, tucked under one arm, while the other arm maneuvered a hot pricker to the touch hole to ignite the gunpowder.
The lock mechanism held within a clamp a to cm 2-to-3 ft long length of smoldering rope soaked in saltpeter, which was the match.
While matchlocks provided a crucial advantage by allowing the user to aim the firearm using both hands, it was also awkward to utilize. In some instances the match would also go out, so both ends of the match were kept lit. This proved cumbersome to maneuver as both hands were required to hold the match during removal, one end in each hand.
