pafarko

Shoot-arch. Pafarko is pafi, to shoot, welded to arko, an arch or a curve. A curved thing for shooting. Compare what English does: bow means a curved thing, a knot of ribbon, a nod of the head and a violinist's stick, and only context tells you which. Esperanto puts the job in the word, so pafarko can only ever be the weapon. Arko on its own is the arch over a doorway or the arc of a curve, and banto is the ribbon.

The shape of the compound. The modifier goes first, the head goes last, and the head is the thing you actually have: a pafarko is a kind of arko, not a kind of pafo. That rule runs through the whole language - poŝtoficejo at rank 2702 is a kind of office, ĉevalvosto is a kind of tail - and it is worth checking against every compound you meet, because getting the head wrong reverses the meaning. The compounding article has the full account.

The archer's kit. The sago is the arrow, the arkpafisto the archer, arkpafado the sport of archery, the ŝnuro the string, and streĉi the verb for drawing it. You aim at a celo and if you are lucky you trafi it.

Historical company. This chapter and the two before it have quietly built a small armoury: kiraso at 2559 is body armour, fusilo at 2529 the rifle that eventually made both the bow and the armour obsolete, and ŝildo at 2110 the shield. Reading historical fiction in Esperanto is one of the better uses of a mid-frequency vocabulary, and this is the vocabulary it needs.