licorne
licorne noun: a type of muzzle-loading gun-howitzer used by the Russian Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Noun
licorne (plural licornes)
- A type of muzzle-loading gun-howitzer used by the Russian Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries.
- But I think our new 24-pounder howitzer will be found superior to any of them, not even excepting the Russian Licorne.1824, “Answers of Sir A. D., K. C. B. of the Royal Artillery, to some questions from Lieutenant C. D. Bengal Artillery”, in The British Indian Military Repository, volume 3
- The Russians have a howitzer denominated licorne, the bore of which is, in its whole extent, the truncated frustrum of a cone: the only field guns in the possession of the artillery at Corfu, in 1822, were Russian guns of this description.1837, T. F. Simmons, Ideas as to the Effect of Heavy Ordnance Directed Against and Applied by Ships of War, etc.
Forms of licorne
| plural | licornes |
|---|
Origin of licorne
From French licorne, semantic loan from Russian единоро́г (jedinoróg, literally “unicorn”), in reference to the unicorn on the coat of arms of count P. I. Shuvalov, who introduced this type of artillery piece. Doublet of unicorn.
Questions about licorne
- What does licorne mean?
- Licorne means a type of muzzle-loading gun-howitzer used by the Russian Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries.
- What part of speech is licorne?
- Licorne is a noun.
- What is the plural of licorne?
- The plural of licorne is licornes.
Words near licorne in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: licorne (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: “licorne.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/licorne. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.