horn
UK /hɔːn/ · US /hɔɹn/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms horns horning horned the Horn
- noun (countable, zootomy) A hard growth of keratin that protrudes from the top of the head of certain animals, usually paired.
- noun Any similar real or imaginary growth or projection such as the elongated tusk of a narwhal, the eyestalk of a snail, the pointed growth on the nose of a rhinoceros, or the hornlike projection on the head of a demon or similar.
- noun An antler.
- noun (uncountable) The hard substance from which animals' horns are made, sometimes used by man as a material for making various objects. “an umbrella with a handle made of horn”
- noun A vessel made from a horn, to contain drink, ink, gunpowder, etc.
- noun One of the two corners of a crescent, particularly of the crescent moon
- noun The high pommel of a saddle; also, either of the projections on a lady's saddle for supporting the leg.
- noun (architecture) The Ionic volute.
- verb (transitive) Of an animal, to assault with the horns.
- verb (transitive) To furnish with horns.
- verb (transitive, slang, obsolete) To cuckold.
- verb (intransitive, Singapore, India) To sound the horn of a motor vehicle; to honk.
- proper noun Cape Horn, at the southern tip of South America. “Sailing around the Horn was an arduous journey for sailing ships.”
- proper noun The Horn of Africa, a peninsula of Africa which juts into the Arabian Sea.
- proper noun A surname.
- proper noun A former civil parish in Rutland, England, abolished in 2016 on the formation of Exton and Horn parish.
- proper noun An unincorporated community in Dawes County, Nebraska, United States.
Synonyms
keratin hooter klaxon funnel blower dog and bone phone boner hard-on stiffy peninsula saddle horn cornet trumpet trump French horn automobile horn car horn motor horn tusk
Etymology
From Middle English horn, horne, from Old English horn, from Proto-West Germanic *horn, from Proto-Germanic *hurną. Compare West Frisian hoarn, Dutch hoorn, Low German Hoorn, horn, German Horn, Danish and Swedish horn, Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌿𐍂𐌽 (haurn).
Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱr̥h₂-nó-m, from *ḱerh₂- (“head, horn”). Compare Breton kern (“horn”), Latin cornū, Ancient Greek κέρας (kéras), Proto-Slavic *sьrna, Old Church Slavonic сьрна (sĭrna, “roedeer”), Hittite [script needed] (surna, “horn”), Persian سر (sar), Sanskrit शृङ्ग (śṛṅga, “horn”). Doublet of corn (“callus”), corno, and cornu.
(telephone): From the horn-shaped earpieces of old communication systems that used air tubes.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A hard, projecting, and usually pointed organ, growing upon the heads of certain animals, esp. of the ruminants, as cattle, goats, and the like. The hollow horns of the Ox family consist externally of true horn, and are never shed.
- noun The antler of a deer, which is of bone throughout, and annually shed and renewed.
- verb To furnish with horns; to give the shape of a horn to.
- verb To cause to wear horns; to cuckold. [Obs.] Shak.
Etymology [AS. horn; akin to D. horen, hoorn, G., Icel., Sw., & Dan. horn, Goth. haúrn, W., Gael., & Ir. corn, L. cornu, Gr. cheer, cranium, cerebral; cf. Skr. çiras head. Cf. Carat, Corn on the foot, Cornea, Corner, Cornet, Cornucopia, Hart.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “horn”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details