SLUGHORN

Etymology

Noun

slughorn (plural slughorns)

(obsolete) A battle cry. [early 16th C.]

(nonstandard, rare) A wind instrument.

Usage notes

• The sense “a wind instrument” is a construction due to Thomas Chatterton who used the term (incorrectly) in this way in his 1760s pseudo-Medieval poetry. He describes the fictional instrument in footnotes as “warlike instruments of music” (Ælla, a Tragycal Enterlude), “a musical instrument not unlike a hautboy” (Eclogue the Second), and “war trumpets” (Battle of Hastings (No. 2)). The term was then erroneously continued by Robert Browning in 1855. The use by Terry Pratchett in 1989 is a deliberate allusion to Chatterton's construction.

Source: Wiktionary


Slug"-horn`, a.

Definition: An erroneous form of the Scotch word slughorne, or sloggorne, meaning slogan.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



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Word of the Day

27 June 2025

SQUARE

(adjective) having four equal sides and four right angles or forming a right angle; “a square peg in a round hole”; “a square corner”


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Coffee Trivia

An article published in Harvard Men’s Health Watch in 2012 shows heavy coffee drinkers live longer. The researchers examined data from 400,000 people and found out that men who drank six or more coffee cups per day had a 10% lower death rate.

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