bicorn
UK/ˈbaɪkɔːn/US/ˈbaɪkɔɹn/
bicorn noun: a two-cornered hat, worn by European and American military and naval officers from the 1790s.
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Noun
bicorn (plural bicorns)
- A two-cornered hat, worn by European and American military and naval officers from the 1790s.
- Just last Sunday, one of the estimated 20 surviving bicorne hats worn by Napoleon was sold at auction for €1.9mn, a price that vindicates the famous epigram, attributed to the emperor among others, that there is but one step separating the sublime from the ridiculous.2023 November 25, Simon Schama, “Napoleon and the mythmakers”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 1
- A plane curve having two cusps.
- A beast having two horns, either real or fictional.
- What a stir about nothing! Phenicopter is no more (pace Dr Septimus Wind and his eyriecal friend, Dr Eagles) than the common flamingo (simplex). Why ask such silly questions? What, for example, is a caterpillar? and why so denominated? There is the common quail as there is the common flag-beetle. A...1882 July 8, “To Correspondents”, in The Musical World, volume LX, number 27, London: […] Duncan Davison & Co., […], page 416, column 1
- But as far as horned species are concerned, if these natural defences were the result of buntings, we should have races of unicorns, not bicorns, that is, the horns ought to have shot out on the spots of the natural “stimulus” from the foreheads, not from the sides!1897 June 11, A. C. R., “Horns”, in Live Stock Journal, volume XLV, number 1210, London: Vinton and Company, […], page 726, column 1
Adjective
bicorn (not comparable)
- Having two horns or similar projections.
bicorn meaning in Arabic
bicorn in Arabic
- two-cornered hat
- قُبَّعَة ذَات قَرْنَيْن
Examples of bicorn in a sentence
- Unicorns and bicorns may be gregarious without even subterfuge or sideral ornament.1882 July 8, “To Correspondents”, in The Musical World, volume LX, number 27, London: […] Duncan Davison & Co., […], page 416, column 1:
- Oooh, look, powdered horn of a Bicorn – don’t know where we’re going to get that …1998 July 2, J. K. Rowling [pseudonym; Joanne Rowling], “The Rogue Bludger”, in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter; 2)...
- Along with the unicorns, came the half-breed and mutated forms of unicorn: the bicorns and tricorns, and all the different breeds of ridgebacks, split-hooves, and pegasus.2007, Grace Fleming, The Travels of Fiere, Waxhaw, N.C.: Otherland Books, →ISBN, page 67:
- They illustrate a venerable controversy: are we looking at unicorns, or bicorns in profile?2009, Chris Lavers, The Natural History of Unicorns, New York, N.Y.: Harper Perennial, published 2010, →ISBN, page 218:
Synonyms of bicorn
Forms of bicorn
| plural | bicorns |
|---|
Origin of bicorn
Borrowed from Latin bicornis (“two-horned; two-pronged”). Compare French bicorne (“two-cornered hat; two-horned monster”) and Middle English bicorne (“two-horned anvil; two-pronged fork; fabulous (two-horned) beast”). Doublet of bicorne.
Words that rhyme with bicorn
Questions about bicorn
- What does bicorn mean?
- Bicorn means a two-cornered hat, worn by European and American military and naval officers from the 1790s.
- What is bicorn in Arabic?
- Bicorn in Arabic is قُبَّعَة ذَات قَرْنَيْن. See Bicorn meaning in Arabic.
- How do you use bicorn in a sentence?
- Unicorns and bicorns may be gregarious without even subterfuge or sideral ornament.
- What part of speech is bicorn?
- Bicorn can be a noun or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce bicorn?
- Bicorn is pronounced /ˈbaɪkɔːn/ (UK).
- What is the plural of bicorn?
- The plural of bicorn is bicorns.
Words near bicorn in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bicorn (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “bicorn.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bicorn. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.