Definition of "carbine"

"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), 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

Inside the wall they found "a small cannon aimed at the entrance of the gate, and all along the street soldiers were stationed and a few on horseback were riding up and down. 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. That section had been terrorized by robbers, and they were prepared."

December 2010, John Pollock, A Foreign Devil in China, World Wide Publications, page 45