English

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Quarter-pood licorne of 1805

Etymology

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From French licorne, calque of Russian единоро́г (jedinoróg, unicorn).

Noun

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licorne (plural licornes)

  1. (historical, military) A type of muzzle-loading gun-howitzer used by the Russian Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries.
    • 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:
      But I think our new 24-pounder howitzer will be found superior to any of them, not even excepting the Russian Licorne.
    • 1837, T. F. Simmons, Ideas as to the Effect of Heavy Ordnance Directed Against and Applied by Ships of War, etc.:
      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.
    • 2007, Jeff Kinard, “Eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century artillery”, in Artillery: An Illustrated History of Its Impact:
      Essentially a hybrid between a howitzer and a gun, thus a gun-howitzer, the licorne was capable of a flatter trajectory and a longer range than the conventional howitzer.

Translations

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Further reading

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French

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Etymology

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From Old French unicorne via reanalysis as une icorne (with indefinite article), followed by further reanalysis of the new definite form l'icorne,[1] or from Italian alicorno, variant of liocorno.[2]

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /li.kɔʁn/
  • Audio:(file)

Noun

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licorne f (plural licornes)

  1. (mythology) unicorn
  2. (heraldry) unicorn
  3. (finance) unicorn (startup whose valuation has exceeded one billion U.S. dollars)

References

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  1. ^ Ti Alkire, Carol Rosen (2010) Romance Languages: A Historical Introduction, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 305
  2. ^ Etymology and history of licorne”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Further reading

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Portuguese

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Etymology

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Borrowed from French licorne.[1][2]

Pronunciation

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  • Hyphenation: li‧cor‧ne

Noun

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licorne m (plural licornes)

  1. unicorn
    Synonym: unicórnio

References

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  1. ^ licorne”, in Dicionário infopédia da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Porto: Porto Editora, 20032024
  2. ^ licorne”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 20082024