slughorn
Syllables: slug·hornUK/ˈslʌɡhɔːn/US/ˈslʌɡˌhɔɹn/
slughorn noun: a certain fictional wind instrument. Also the obsolete spelling of slogan.
Noun
slughorn (plural slughorns)
- A certain fictional wind instrument.
- Sounde, sounde the slughornes, to bee hearde fromm farre.1767, Thomas Chatterton, The Tournament, line 150
- [...] And yet / Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set / And blew. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came."1855, Robert Browning, “‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.’”, in Men and Women […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, stanza 34, page 148
Also used as
slughorn is also the obsolete spelling of slogan.
Forms of slughorn
| plural | slughorns |
|---|---|
| alternative form | slug-horn |
Origin of slughorn
See slogan. Sense 1 (“wind instrument”) is due to an incorrect use of the word slughorn (sense 2: “battle cry”) by the English poet Thomas Chatterton (1752–1770) in his 1760s pseudo-Medieval poetry. He described the fictional instrument in footnotes as “warlike instruments of music” (Ælla, a Tragycal Enterlude), “a musical instrument not unlike a hautboy” (Eclogue the Second), and “war trumpets” (Battle of Hastings (No. 2)). The erroneous sense was then continued by the English poet and playwright Robert Browning (1812–1889) in his 1855 poem Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came. The use by English author Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) in 1989 is a deliberate allusion to Chatterton.
Questions about slughorn
- What does slughorn mean?
- Slughorn means a certain fictional wind instrument.
- What part of speech is slughorn?
- Slughorn is a noun.
- How do you pronounce slughorn?
- Slughorn is pronounced /ˈslʌɡhɔːn/ (UK).
- What is the plural of slughorn?
- The plural of slughorn is slughorns.
Words near slughorn in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: slughorn (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: “slughorn.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/slughorn. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.