Word.ws English Dictionary

round the Horn

round the Horn is the alternative form of around the Horn.

Meaning of around the Horn

Prepositional phrase

  1. (Navy, US, idiomatic) Via shipboard communications, formerly metal tubes with earhorn-like ends.
  2. Following the extremely hazardous naval route around Cape Horn, the southernmost point in South America.
    Synonyms:
    round the Horn

See all 3 meanings of around the horn

Verb

round the Horn (third-person singular simple present rounds the Horn, present participle rounding the Horn, simple past and past participle rounded the Horn)

  1. To sail around Cape Horn.
    • The entire crew was nervous as they began to round the Horn.

Forms of round the Horn

third-person singular presentrounds the Horn
present participlerounding the Horn
past participlerounded the Horn
pastrounded the Horn

Questions about round the Horn

What does round the Horn mean?
Round the Horn means to sail around Cape Horn.
What is round the Horn the alternative form of?
Round the Horn is the alternative form of around the Horn.
What part of speech is round the Horn?
Round the Horn is a verb.
What is the past tense of round the Horn?
The past tense of round the Horn is rounded the Horn.

Words near round the Horn in the dictionary

  1. round table
  2. round tables
  3. round the bend
  4. round the clock
  5. round the corner
  6. round the Horn
  7. round the twist
  8. round the wicket
  9. round to
  10. round top
  11. round tops

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: round the Horn (page history and authors); around the Horn (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: “round the Horn.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/round_the_horn. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.