A pointed instrument of the dagger kind fitted on the muzzle of a musket or rifle, so as to give the soldier increased means of offence and defence. Originally, the bayonet was made with a handle, which required to be fitted into the bore of the musket after the soldier had fired
Fig. 3. Its bayonet, to be fixed by sticking the handle into the muzzle of the musquet.
A pin which plays in and out of holes made to receive it, and which thus serves to engage or disengage parts of the machinery
To bayonet someone means to push a bayonet into them. The soldiers were ordered by their inhuman officers to bayonet every man they could find. a long knife that is fixed to the end of a rifle (=long gun) (baïonnette, from Bayonne city in southwest France where it was first made). to push the point of a bayonet into someone. Short, sharp-edged, sometimes pointed weapon, designed for attachment to the muzzle of a firearm. According to tradition, it was developed in Bayonne, France, early in the 17th century and soon spread throughout Europe. The earliest design, the plug bayonet, was inserted into the muzzle of a musket, thus preventing the musket from being fired until the bayonet was removed. Later designs, including the socket bayonet invented by Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban (1688), slipped it over the muzzle. Repeating firearms greatly reduced its combat value. By World War I it had become an all-purpose knife