4. (old).—The penis. For synonyms, see Creamstick and Prick.
5. (colloquial).—Also in pl., see verb.
Horn, verb (colloquial).—To cuckold. [Becco (= a he-goat) and cornuto (= a horned thing) are good Italian for a cuckold; in Florio (Worlde of Wordes, 1598) andar in cornouaglia senza barca (i.e., to go to Cornwall without a ship) = to win the horn; and the expression, as the example from Lydgate appears to show, may very well have been imported into English from the Italian. Also, it seems to have begun to be literary about the middle of the sixteenth century, when the Italian influence was at its height. For the rest it passed in triumph into written English, was used in every possible combination, had a run at least two centuries long, and is still intelligible, though not in common service.] See Actæon, antlers, bull’s feather, freeman of bucks, etc.
Hence, to hornify (see subs., sense 3), and to graft (or give) horns; to wear horns = to live a cuckold; horner, subs. = a cuckold maker; horn-mad, adj. phr. (q.v.); horned, adj. = cuckolded; horn-grower (or merchant) subs. = a married man; horn-fever, subs. = cuckoldry; to exalt one’s horn, verb. phr. = (1) to cuckold, and (2) to rejoice in, or profit by, the condition; to wind the horn = to publish the fact of cuckoldom; horns-to-sell, subs. phr. = (1) a lewd wife, and (2) a wittol; to point the horn = to fork the fingers in derision (as in Hogarth’s ‘Industrious and Idle Apprentice,’ 1790, plate v.); horn-works = the process of cuckolding; at the sign of the horn = in cuckoldom; horn-pipe = (see quot. 1602); horned herd, subs. phr. = husbands in general (specifically, the city men, the Citizens of London, the cuckolding of whom by West-end gallants is a constant theme of seventeenth century jokes); gilt-horn, subs. = a contented Cuckold; spirit of hartshorn = the suspicion or the certainty of cuckoldom; long horns, subs. = a notorious cuckold; knight of Hornsey, also member for Horncastle, subs. phr. = a cuckold, etc.
d. 1440. Lydgate, Falle of Prynces, ii., leaf 56 (ed. Wayland, 1557, quoted in [[352]]Dyce’s Skelton, 1843, ii., 132). To speke plaine Englishe made him cokolde. Alas I was not auised wel before Vnkonnyngly to speake such language: I should haue sayde how that he had an horne.… And in some land Cornodo men do them call, And some affirme that such folk have no gall.
c. 152(?). Hick Scorner (Dodsley, Old Plays, 4th ed., 1875, i., 180). My mother was a lady of the stews, blood born, And (Knight of the Halter) my father wore an horne.
c. 1537. Thersites (Dodsley, Old Plays, 4th ed., 1875, i., 412). Why wilt thou not thy hornes inhold? Thinkest thou that I am a cuckold.
c. 1550. The Pride and Abuse of Women (176 in Early Pop. Poetry, ed. Hazlitt, iv., 237). And loke well, ye men to your wives.… Or some wyll not styche.… To horne you on everye side.
1568. Bannatyne MSS. ‘The use of Court,’ p. 765 (Hunterian Club, 1886). Vp gettis hir wame, Scho thinkis no schame For to bring hame The laird ane horne.
1574. Appius and Virginia (Dodsley, Old Plays, 4th ed., 1875, iv., 118). A hairbrain, a hangman, or a grafter of hornes.