horn

Meanings

Noun

• A hard growth of keratin that protrudes from the top of the head of certain animals, usually paired.
• 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.
• An antler.
• The hard substance from which animals' horns are made, sometimes used by man as a material for making various objects.
• An object whose shape resembles a horn, such as cornucopia, the point of an anvil, or a vessel for gunpowder or liquid.
• Any of several musical wind instruments.
• An instrument resembling a musical horn and used to signal others.
• A loud alarm, especially one on a motor vehicle.
• A sound signaling the expiration of time.
• A conical device used to direct waves.
• Generally, any brass wind instrument.
• A telephone.
• An erection of the penis.
• A peninsula or crescent-shaped tract of land.
• A diacritical mark that may be attached to the top right corner of the letters o and u when writing in Vietnamese, thus forming ơ and ư.
• An incurved, tapering and pointed appendage found in the flowers of the milkweed (Asclepias).

Verb

• To assault with the horns.
• To furnish with horns.
• To cuckold.

Origin

• 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.
• Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European, from *ḱerh₂-. Compare Breton kern ("horn"), Latin cornū, Ancient Greek κέρας, Proto-Slavic *sьrna, Old Church Slavonic сьрна ("roedeer"), Hittite ("horn"), Persian سور, Sanskrit शृङ्ग ("horn").