1708. Prior, Poems. ‘The Turtle and Sparrow,’ line 302–9. ‘Two staring Horns,’ I often said, ‘but ill became a sparrow’s head’ … ‘Whilst at the root your horns are sore, The more you scratch, they ache the more.’
1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., i., 174. Who’s the Cuckoo, Who’s the Cuckold, who’s the horner?
1728. Patrick Walker, Alexander Peden, ‘Postscript’ (ed. 1827, i.). A profane, obscene meeting called the horn-order.
1737. Fielding, Tumble-Down Dick, Works (1718) iii., 408. Think it enough your betters do the deed, And that by horning you I mend the breed.
d. 1742. Somerville, Occasional Poems (Chalmers, English Poets, 1810, xi., 238). If I but catch her in a corner, Humph! ’tis your servant, Colonel Horner.
1759–67. Sterne, Tristram Shandy, ch. xxxvii. Nor have the horn-works he speaks of anything to do with the horn-works of Cuckoldom.
1765. C. Smart, Fables, xi., line 66. And though your spouse my lecture scorns. Beware his fate, beware his Horns.
d. 1770. Chatterton, The Revenge, i., I. Let her do what she will, The husband is still, And but for his horns you would think him an ass. Idem., ii., 4. Have you come horning.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
1786. Captain Morris (Collection of Songs), The Great Plenipotentiary, (9th ed. 1788, stanza ix., p. 43). She had horned the dull brows of her worshipful spouse Till they sprouted like Venus’s myrtle.