unicorn bait
unicorn bait noun: a virgin.
Noun
unicorn bait (uncountable)
- A virgin.
- She had turned herself back into a virgin again, with that flair for backwardness of hers. An unusual talent, I thought, but of no particular use - except perhaps in a cat-house, where, by exercising it she might continue to fetch premium prices from customers with a special taste for unicorn bait.1966, David R. Slavitt, Rochelle: or, Virtue Rewarded, Chapman and Hall, published 1966, page 118
- Who'd marry the Fool? Who'd betroth his daughter to the Fool? The very scorn that made his magic possible also made any kind of a normal life impossible. The only chance to find a woman lay among the magical creatures of the realm…and he wasn't at all sure that he wanted to make that kind of...2007, Mercedes Lackey, Fortune's Fool, Luna, →ISBN, page 120
Origin of unicorn bait
From the tradition that only a virgin could tame a unicorn, leading hunters to use virgins to lure the legendary beast into being captured.
Questions about unicorn bait
- What does unicorn bait mean?
- Unicorn bait means a virgin.
- What part of speech is unicorn bait?
- Unicorn bait is a noun.
Words near unicorn bait in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: unicorn bait (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-unicorn bait.ogg.
Cite this entry: “unicorn bait.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/unicorn_bait. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.