small oval coupling device with a hinged gate, 1932, shortened from German karabiner-haken "spring hook, swivel," from karabiner "carbine, rifle" (17c.), from French carabine (see carbine).
Entries linking to karabiner
carbine n.
short rifle (in 19c. especially one adapted for mounted troops), 1580s, from French carabine (Middle French carabin), used of light horsemen and also of the weapon they carried; it is of uncertain origin, perhaps from Medieval Latin Calabrinus "Calabrian" (i.e., "rifle made in Calabria"). A less-likely theory (Gamillscheg, etc.) connects it to Old French escarrabin "corpse-bearer during the plague," literally (probably) "carrion beetle," said to have been an epithet for archers from Flanders.