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alicorn (AL-i-korn) - n., the horn of a unicorn, esp. considered as a pharmaceutical; a winged unicorn or single-horned pegasus.
The first is the historical sense, and was prized for its supposed powers of healing and purification, though since this was never tested I've no idea how they'd know. The latter sense seems to have been created by Piers Anthony in Bearing an Hourglass and other fantasy novels, and then used by others. As for the source, it was borrowed from Italian alicorno, a regional variation on liocorno (I don't know which region), a blend of lioni or leoni, lion + unicorno, unicorn. Why lion gives us a horn, or indeed what a lion/unicorn blend would look like, I have no idea.
---L.
The first is the historical sense, and was prized for its supposed powers of healing and purification, though since this was never tested I've no idea how they'd know. The latter sense seems to have been created by Piers Anthony in Bearing an Hourglass and other fantasy novels, and then used by others. As for the source, it was borrowed from Italian alicorno, a regional variation on liocorno (I don't know which region), a blend of lioni or leoni, lion + unicorno, unicorn. Why lion gives us a horn, or indeed what a lion/unicorn blend would look like, I have no idea.
---L.
