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Horn   /hɔrn/   Listen
noun
Horn  n.  
1.
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.
2.
The antler of a deer, which is of bone throughout, and annually shed and renewed.
3.
(Zool.) Any natural projection or excrescence from an animal, resembling or thought to resemble a horn in substance or form; esp.:
(a)
A projection from the beak of a bird, as in the hornbill.
(b)
A tuft of feathers on the head of a bird, as in the horned owl.
(c)
A hornlike projection from the head or thorax of an insect, or the head of a reptile, or fish.
(d)
A sharp spine in front of the fins of a fish, as in the horned pout.
4.
(Bot.) An incurved, tapering and pointed appendage found in the flowers of the milkweed (Asclepias).
5.
Something made of a horn, or in resemblance of a horn; as:
(a)
A wind instrument of music; originally, one made of a horn (of an ox or a ram); now applied to various elaborately wrought instruments of brass or other metal, resembling a horn in shape. "Wind his horn under the castle wall." See French horn, under French.
(b)
A drinking cup, or beaker, as having been originally made of the horns of cattle. "Horns of mead and ale."
(c)
The cornucopia, or horn of plenty. See Cornucopia. "Fruits and flowers from Amalthaea's horn."
(d)
A vessel made of a horn; esp., one designed for containing powder; anciently, a small vessel for carrying liquids. "Samuel took the hornof oil and anointed him (David)."
(e)
The pointed beak of an anvil.
(f)
The high pommel of a saddle; also, either of the projections on a lady's saddle for supporting the leg.
(g)
(Arch.) The Ionic volute.
(h)
(Naut.) The outer end of a crosstree; also, one of the projections forming the jaws of a gaff, boom, etc.
(i)
(Carp.) A curved projection on the fore part of a plane.
(j)
One of the projections at the four corners of the Jewish altar of burnt offering. "Joab... caught hold on the horns of the altar."
6.
One of the curved ends of a crescent; esp., an extremity or cusp of the moon when crescent-shaped. "The moon Wears a wan circle round her blunted horns."
7.
(Mil.) The curving extremity of the wing of an army or of a squadron drawn up in a crescentlike form. "Sharpening in mooned horns Their phalanx."
8.
The tough, fibrous material of which true horns are composed, being, in the Ox family, chiefly albuminous, with some phosphate of lime; also, any similar substance, as that which forms the hoof crust of horses, sheep, and cattle; as, a spoon of horn.
9.
(Script.) A symbol of strength, power, glory, exaltation, or pride. "The Lord is... the horn of my salvation."
10.
An emblem of a cuckold; used chiefly in the plural. "Thicker than a cuckold's horn."
11.
The telephone; as, on the horn. (slang)
12.
A body of water shaped like a horn; as, the Golden Horn in Istanbul.
Horn block, the frame or pedestal in which a railway car axle box slides up and down; also called horn plate.
Horn of a dilemma. See under Dilemma.
Horn distemper, a disease of cattle, affecting the internal substance of the horn.
Horn drum, a wheel with long curved scoops, for raising water.
Horn lead (Chem.), chloride of lead.
Horn maker, a maker of cuckolds. (Obs.)
Horn mercury. (Min.) Same as Horn quicksilver (below).
Horn poppy (Bot.), a plant allied to the poppy (Glaucium luteum), found on the sandy shores of Great Britain and Virginia; called also horned poppy.
Horn pox (Med.), abortive smallpox with an eruption like that of chicken pox.
Horn quicksilver (Min.), native calomel, or bichloride of mercury.
Horn shell (Zool.), any long, sharp, spiral, gastropod shell, of the genus Cerithium, and allied genera.
Horn silver (Min.), cerargyrite.
Horn slate, a gray, siliceous stone.
To pull in one's horns, To haul in one's horns, to withdraw some arrogant pretension; to cease a demand or withdraw an assertion. (Colloq.)
To raise the horn, or To lift the horn (Script.), to exalt one's self; to act arrogantly. "'Gainst them that raised thee dost thou lift thy horn?"
To take a horn, to take a drink of intoxicating liquor. (Low)


verb
Horn  v. t.  
1.
To furnish with horns; to give the shape of a horn to.
2.
To cause to wear horns; to cuckold. (Obs.)





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Horn" Quotes from Famous Books



... $500,000, of which one-third was for land damages, was but little more than the estimate. Commencing at Charlestown mill-pond, it passed through Medford, crossing the Mystic by a wooden aqueduct of 100 ft., to Horn pond in Woburn. Traversing Woburn and Wilmington it crossed the Shawshine by an aqueduct of 137 ft., and struck the Concord, from which it receives its water, at Billerica Mills. Entering the Concord by a stone guard-lock, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various
... in his hands the horn that was called the Gialarhorn. He would sound it to let the Dwellers in Asgard know that one was crossing the Rainbow Bridge. And Heimdall told little Hnossa how he had trained himself to hear the grasses grow, and how he could see all around him for a hundred miles. ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... at that meal, the postboy's twanging horn was heard, as he trotted into the village with his letter-bag. My lord's bag was brought in presently from the village, and his letters, which he put aside, and his newspaper which he read. He smiled as he came to a paragraph, looked at his Virginian cousin, and handed the ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... made of different colors in different proportions, according to the time he allotted to each particular affair; as he carried these about with him wherever he went, to make them burn evenly he invented horn lanterns. One cannot help being amazed that a prince, who lived in such turbulent times, who commanded personally in fifty-four pitched battles, who had so disordered a province to regulate, who was not only a legislator, but a judge, and who was continually superintending his armies, his ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... was passing into pralaya, an ark, a vessel appeared; into this vessel stepped the great Rishi with others, and the seeds of life were carried by Them, and as They go forth upon the waters a mighty fish appears and to the horn of that fish the vessel is fastened by a rope, and it conveys the whole safely to the solid ground where the Manu rebegins His work. A story! yes, but a story that tells a truth; for looking at it as it takes ...
— Avataras • Annie Besant


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