Word.ws English Dictionary

horn-book

horn-book is the alternative form of hornbook.

Meaning of hornbook

Noun

hornbook (plural hornbooks)

  1. (historical) A single page containing the alphabet, covered with a sheet of transparent horn, formerly used for teaching children to read.
    • Yes, yes, he teaches boyes the Horne-Booke: […]c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    Synonyms:
    battledore
  2. A legal textbook that provides a basic overview of a particular area of law.

Forms of horn-book

pluralhorn-books

Questions about horn-book

What is horn-book the alternative form of?
Horn-book is the alternative form of hornbook.

Words near horn-book in the dictionary

  1. horn tipper
  2. horn tippers
  3. horn violin
  4. horn violins
  5. horn-bearing
  6. horn-book
  7. horn-dog
  8. horn-dogs
  9. horn-helmeted
  10. horn-mad
  11. horn-owl

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: horn-book (page history and authors); hornbook (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “horn-book.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/horn-book. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.