corno

Forms

corno m (plural (in all meanings) corni m or (alternatively when referring to animals) corna f)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian chorno, Old Italian cuorno and Old Italian cornu.^[2] An old plural was cornora.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cornū (“horn”).^[4][5][6][1] The same word is French cor (the musical horn), Occitan corn, Catalan corn, Spanish cuerno, Portuguese corno, Sardinian corru and Romanian corn.^[5][7] The Latin neuter plural cornua, spoken as Vulgar Latin *corna, was taken as a feminine singular and gave corne “horn”;^[5] Italian kept it as the plural corna, beside corni.^[7][8]

Latin cornū goes back to Proto-Italic *kornū.^[9][1] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *ḱrn-o-, later turned into a u-stem, with cognates such as Old High German horn, Welsh carn (“hoof”) and Sanskrit शृङ्ग (śṛ́ṅga, “horn”);^[9] Nocentini adds Ancient Greek κέρας (kéras, “horn”) and derives them all from a root for hard matter, the source also of cervus (“deer”), cerebrum (“brain”) and κάρα (kára, “head”).^[5] Wiktionary refers the word ultimately to *ḱerh₂- (“horn”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur of the last quarter of the 12th century, for the bony horn that grows on the head of certain hoofed mammals.^[2] DELI's first example, from Bono Giamboni before 1292, has the same sense.^[4] Giamboni writes of a wild ox of Germany “that has such great horns that they are good for sounding and for carrying wine” (che ha sì grandi corna, che son buone per sonare e per portar vino).^[3][10]

Semantic evolution

Nocentini explains the extensions of meaning by the practical uses of horn as a vessel and as a signalling instrument.^[5] Old Italian already used the word for the horn of mythical beings and of the devil, for the material, for the hoof of a horse, for the constellations of the Ram, the Goat and the Bull, and for a heraldic figure; the horns stood for pride (alzare le corna “to grow arrogant”) and for the outrage of adultery (fare le corna a qualcuno).^[2] Nocentini sees the cuckold's horns as pastoral: cornuto “cuckold” replaced becco “he-goat”, an animal indifferent to the mating of its females.^[5] DELI dates cornuto “horned” before 1321 and “betrayed spouse” before 1470, in Pulci.^[4]

The old wind instrument made from an ox horn, and later the brass instrument coiled in two or three turns, are in Dante: “But I heard a high horn sound, so loud that it would have made any thunder faint” (Ma io senti' sonare un alto corno, / tanto ch'avrebbe ogni tuon fatto fioco).^[4][3] Later senses are named for the shape or the material: a conical peak (before 1519, Leonardo), the horn-shaped cap of the Doge of Venice (before 1500), objects made of horn (before 1530) and the shoehorn (1874, in a letter of Giovanni Bosco: Portami una camicia, corno per le scarpe “Bring me a shirt and a shoehorn”).^[4] The small horn-shaped amulet against the evil eye is recorded before 1886.^[4]

English took corno as a musical term in 1818 and German in 1802;^[11] Turkish korna is also borrowed from it.^[1]

Timeline

• 1175–1200 – The Venetian Proverbia que dicuntur have the first record.^[2]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses corno for an animal's horn.^[4]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses it for the wind instrument and for the feelers of animals.^[4]
• Before 1470 – Pulci uses cornuto for a betrayed spouse.^[4]
• Before 1500 – The word is recorded for the Doge's cap.^[4]
• Before 1519 – Leonardo uses it for a conical mountain peak.^[4]
• Before 1530 – Sannazaro uses it for horn as a material.^[4]
• 1802 – German Corno is recorded as a musical term.^[11]
• 1818 – English corno is recorded.^[11]
• 1874 – Giovanni Bosco writes of a corno per le scarpe, a shoehorn.^[4]
• Before 1886 – Imbriani records the horn-shaped amulet.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A horn or antler of a mammal (plural corna); also of imaginary beings: il caprone abbassò le corna.^[6][12][8]
2. By extension, a horn-like appendage on the head of some invertebrates, such as the feelers of a snail: toccata, la lumaca nasconde le corna.^[6][12]
3. (jocular) A bump on the head.^[6][12][8]
4. (figurative, plural corna) A sign of marital infidelity: fare le corna, to cheat on one's partner.^[6][8]
5. A horn made from an animal's horn, used for signals in hunting or war.^[6]
6. (music) The French horn, a brass instrument with a long coiled tube ending in a wide bell (plural corni); by extension, its player in an orchestra.^[6][11]
7. A small horn-shaped amulet worn for luck.^[6][1]
8. Something shaped like a horn; a pointed end: the tips of a crescent moon, the farthest point of a region or coast, a mountain peak: il Corno d'Africa.^[6][1]
9. One of two symmetrical parts of something, such as the wing of an army or a building, or the branch of a road or river.^[6]
10. (singular) Horn as a material: una tabacchiera di corno.^[6][12]
11. A shoehorn: corno da scarpe.^[6][1]
12. (colloquial) Nothing at all, in negative phrases; as an exclamation, a flat denial: non me ne importa un corno;^[6][13] un corno!^[6][13]

Word family

• cornetto
• cornetta
• cornata
• cornuto
• cornista
• incornare
• scornare
• cornatura
• cornificare

Related words

• cornea
• cornucopia
• corneo
• Latin cornū
• French cor

Usage notes

The feminine plural corna is used collectively for the horns of animals and in figurative phrases;^[8][12][13] corni is used in the other senses, such as the musical instrument.^[8][12][13] Fixed phrases include prendere il toro per le corna “to take the bull by the horns”, dire peste e corna di qualcuno “to speak very ill of someone” and fare le corna, also the gesture of the raised index and little finger made to mock or to ward off bad luck.^[13][14]

A minor homograph is corno “cornel”, a plant of the genus Cornus, to which the cornelian cherry and the dogwood belong;^[6][15] GRADIT records it before 1704 and takes it from scientific Cornus, from Latin cornus (“cornel”),^[6][15] and Old Italian has it for the cornel tree in the first half of the 14th century.^[2] De Vaan thinks Latin cornus and its Greek match Ancient Greek κράνον (kránon) are probably a loan from a third language.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 3, 788
11. ^ a b c d Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
12. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
13. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
15. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)