1672. Ray, Proverbs (in Bohn, 1889), s.v. He had better put his horns in his pocket than wind them. Idem. (p. 184). Horns and gray hairs do not come with years. Idem. id., Who hath horns in his pocket let him not put them on his head.
1675. Wycherley, Country Wife, v., 4. Epilogue: Encouraged by our woman’s man to-day, a horner’s part may vainly think to play. Ibid., i., 1. I make no more cuckolds, sir. [Makes horns.] Ibid., iv., 3. If ever you suffer your wife to trouble me again here, she shall carry you home a pair of horns.
1677. Wycherley, Plain Dealer, iv., 1. First, the clandestine obscenity in the very name of horner. [[354]]
d. 1680. Butler, Remains (1757), ii., 372. His own branches, his horns, are as mystical as the Whore of Babylon’s Palfreys, not to be seen but in a vision.
1693. Congreve, Old Bachelor, iv., 15. Pox choke him. Would his horns were in his throat.
1695. Congreve, Love for Love, iv., 15. The clocks will strike twelve at noon, and the horned herd buzz in the Exchange at two.
1698. Farquhar, Love and a Bottle, iv., 3. Should I ever be tried before this judge, how I should laugh to see how gravely his goose cap sits upon a pair of horns!
1700. Congreve, Way of the World, iii., 7. Man should have his head and horns, and woman the rest of him.
1702. Steele, The Funeral or Grief à la Mode, Act. i., p. 22. This wench I know has played me false, and horned me in my gallants. [Note.—That the speaker is a female shows the word to have been transferable to the other sex.]
1708. W. King, Art of Love, pt. x. (Chalmers, English Poets, 1810, ix., 274). Sometimes his dirty paws she scorns, While her fair fingers show his horns.