HORN

9 definitions found across Law Mind sources

HORNAuthored
The Law Mind • 952 words
Definition
In old Scots law, a trumpet or horn instrument used as the physical implement of a formal legal ceremony of denunciation. When a person was declared contumacious — that is, in willful defiance of a court order or legal summons — the king's sergeant would sound three blasts of the horn in a public proclamation. This act rendered the person legally "at the horn," a status equivalent to being denounced as a rebel and outlaw. The horn itself was the instrument; the procedure was called "putting to the horn." The status carried serious civil and legal consequences, including the potential forfeiture of goods and loss of legal standing.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A hard, pointed projection growing from the head of certain animals; also a musical instrument shaped similarly; surnames and place names share the word. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A hard, projecting, and usually pointed organ growing upon the heads of certain animals, especially ruminants; by extension, any object resembling such a projection in shape or function, including wind instruments made from animal horn. The legal meaning of HORN is entirely divorced from its common meaning. In the legal context, the horn is not defined by its physical properties but by its ceremonial and juridical function within Scots law. Understanding it requires understanding the system of denunciation it served, not any knowledge of anatomy or music.
Common Confusion
HORN and HORNING are closely related but distinct. HORN refers to the physical instrument and to the status of being denounced ("at the horn"). HORNING is the name of the broader legal process — the letters, writ, and ceremony by which denunciation was accomplished. A researcher encountering "horn" in a historical Scots legal document should immediately consider whether the reference is to the instrument, the status of the denounced party, or an abbreviated reference to the process of horning itself. The two terms appear in close proximity in historical records and are often treated interchangeably in secondary sources, which can obscure the procedural distinction.
Why It Matters in Research
HORN is a term of exclusively Scots legal history. Researchers will encounter it only in sources dealing with pre-Union Scottish practice, criminal trials, civil process, or the Privy Council records of Scotland. It does not appear as an operative legal term in English common law, American law, or post-Union Scots law in its technical sense. The primary research trap is treating "at the horn" as a vague or metaphorical phrase. It was a precise legal status with defined consequences: a person "at the horn" was in a condition analogous to outlawry, and that status affected their capacity to sue, hold property, and participate in legal proceedings. Missing this precision can cause a researcher to misread the legal position of a party in historical Scottish records. The term also illustrates how physical objects — instruments, seals, emblems — served as constitutive elements of legal acts in early modern law. The horn was not mere ceremony; sounding it was the legal act. Researchers working on the relationship between ritual and legal validity in historical procedure will find the horn a productive example alongside the seal, the rod, and the staff in other jurisdictions. Cross-reference to HORNING is essential. The full procedural framework — letters of horning, the messenger's role, the relationship to caption and the horn's use in debt enforcement — is developed under that entry.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries are in near-identical agreement, which is itself instructive: Black's (1st and 2nd editions) and Burrill reproduce substantially the same definition, all tracing to Bell's Dictionary. This convergence reflects the term's narrow, stable meaning — it did not evolve or migrate across jurisdictions, so there was nothing for later lexicographers to revise. Burrill's entry is the most useful for research purposes, as it supplies specific citations absent from the Black's entries: Bell's Dictionary under "Denunciation," Skene's De Verborum Significatione under "Bannitus," and Pitcairn's Criminal Trials. These are the primary bibliographic pathways into the historical record. A researcher who needs to go beyond the dictionary definition should begin with Skene and Pitcairn. None of the historical dictionaries explain the legal consequences of being "at the horn" in any depth. They identify the instrument and the ceremony but leave the substantive effects — forfeiture, loss of civil capacity, relationship to imprisonment by caption — to be found under HORNING and related entries. This gap means the dictionary entries for HORN are reliable as far as they go but incomplete as research tools standing alone.
Jurisdictional Note
HORN in its legal sense is confined to old Scots law and has no direct equivalent in English common law or American legal practice. Researchers working in comparative early modern law may find analogous public denunciation procedures in other jurisdictions, but the term itself does not transfer. Post-Union Scots law substantially reformed the process of horning, and "horn" as a legal term of art fell out of active use accordingly.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: HORNING
Related Terms
Horning — the process of which the horn was the instrument; the primary related entry Putting to the Horn — the specific ceremonial act; treated as a phrase within HORNING At the Horn — the legal status of the denounced party Denunciation (Scots law) — the broader category of public legal proclamation Caption — the writ of arrest that could follow denunciation at the horn Contumacy — the underlying legal condition triggering the procedure Outlawry — the closest English common law analogue in consequencethough procedurally distinct Rebel — the formal designation applied to one put to the horn
HORNmain
Black's Law Dictionary • 1891
In old Scotch practice. A kind of trumpet used in denouncing contumacious persons rebels and outlaws, which was done with three blasts of the horn by the king's sergeant. This was called "putting to the horn;" and the party so denounced was said to be "at the horn." Bell.
HORNmain
Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1870
In old Scotch practice. A kind of trumpet used in denouncing contumacious persons rebels, and outlaws; which was done with three blasts of the horn by the king's serjeant. This was called "putting to the horn;" and the party so denounced was said to be "at the horn." Bell's Dict. voc. Denunciation. Skene de Verb. Sign. voc. Bannitus. 1 Pitc. Cr. Trials, part 2, pp. 77, 80.
HORNmain
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910
In old Scotch practice. A kind of trumpet used in denouncing contumacious persons rebels and outlaws, which was done with three blasts of the horn by the king’s sergeant. This was called “putting to the horn ;” and the party so denounced was said to be “at the horn.’ Bell. See HORNING.
HORNn.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
A hard, projecting, and usually pointed organ, growing upon the heads of certain animals, esp. of the ruminants, as cattle, goats, and the like. The hollow horns of the Ox family consist externally of true horn, and are never shed. The antler of a deer, which is of bone throughout, and annually shed and renewed. Any natural projection or excrescence from an animal, resembling or thought to resemble a horn in substance or form; esp.: A projection from the beak of a bird, as in the hornbill. (b) A tuft of feathers on the head of a bird, as in the horned owl. (c) A hornlike projection from the head or thorax of an insect, or the head of a reptile, or fish. (d) A sharp spine in front of the fins of a fish, as in the horned pout. An incurved, tapering and pointed appendage found in the flowers of the milkweed (Asclepias). Something made of a horn, or in resemblance of a horn; as: A wind instrument of music; originally, one made of a horn (of an ox or a ram); now applied to various elaborately wrought instruments of brass or other metal, resembling a horn in shape. "Wind his horn under the castle wall." Spenser. See French horn, under French. A drinking cup, or beaker, as having been originally made of the horns of cattle. "Horns of mead and ale." Mason. The cornucopia, or horn of plenty. See Cornucopia. "Fruits and flowers from Amalthæa's horn." Milton. A vessel made of a horn; esp., one designed for containing powder; anciently, a small vessel for carrying liquids. "Samuel took the hornof oil and anointed him [David]." 1 Sam. xvi. 13. The pointed beak of an anvil. The high pommel of a saddle; also, either of the projections on a lady's saddle for supporting the leg. One of the projections at the four corners of the Jewish altar of burnt offering. "Joab . . . caught hold on the horns of the altar." 1 Kings ii. 28. One of the curved ends of a crescent; esp., an extremity or cusp of the moon when crescent-shaped. The moon Wears a wan circle round her blunted horns. Thomson. The curving extremity of the wing of an army or of a squadron drawn up in a crescentlike form. Sharpening in mooned horns Their phalanx. Milton. The tough, fibrous material of which true horns are composed, being, in the Ox family, chiefly albuminous, with some phosphate of lime; also, any similar substance, as that which forms the hoof crust of horses, sheep, and cattle; as, a spoon of horn. A symbol of strength, power, glory, exaltation, or pride. The Lord is . . . the horn of my salvation. Ps. xviii. 2. An emblem of a cuckold; -- used chiefly in the plural. "Thicker than a cuckold's horn." Shak. Horn block, the frame or pedestal in which a railway car axle box slides up and down; -- also called horn plate. -- Horn of a dilemma. See under Dilemma. -- Horn distemper, a disease of cattle, affecting the internal substance of the horn. -- Horn drum, a wheel with long curved scoops, for raising water. -- Horn lead (Chem.), chloride of lead. -- Horn maker, a maker of cuckolds. [Obs.] Shak. -- Horn mercury. (Min.) Same as Horn quicksilver (below). -- Horn poppy (Bot.), a plant allied to the poppy (Glaucium luteum), found on the sandy shores of Great Britain and Virginia; -- called also horned poppy. Gray. -- Horn pox (Med.), abortive smallpox with an eruption like that of chicken pox. -- Horn quicksilver (Min.), native calomel, or bichloride of mercury. -- Horn shell (Zoöl.), any long, sharp, spiral, gastropod shell, of the genus Cerithium, and allied genera. -- Horn silver (Min.), cerargyrite. -- Horn slate, a gray, siliceous stone. -- To haul in one's horns, to withdraw some arrogant pretension. [Colloq.] -- To raise, or lift, the horn (Script.), to exalt one's self; to act arrogantly. "'Gainst them that raised thee dost thou lift thy horn" Milton. -- To take a horn, to take a drink of intoxicating liquor. [Low]
HORNv.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
To furnish with horns; to give the shape of a horn to. To cause to wear horns; to cuckold. [Obs.] Shak.
Hornname
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
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A surname. | A former civil parish in Rutland, England, abolished in 2016 on the formation of Exton and Horn parish. | An unincorporated community in Dawes County, Nebraska, United States.
Hornname
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
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Cape Horn, at the southern tip of South America. | The Horn of Africa, a peninsula of Africa which juts into the Arabian Sea.
hornnoun
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
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A hard growth of keratin that protrudes from the top of the head of certain animals, usually paired. | Any similar real or imaginary growth or projection such as the elongated tusk of a narwhal, the eyestalk of a snail, the pointed growth on the nose of a rhinoceros, or the hornlike projection on the head of a demon or similar. | An antler. | The hard substance from which animals' horns are made, sometimes used by man as a material for making various objects. | A vessel made from a horn, to contain drink, ink, gunpowder, etc. | An object whose shape resembles a horn, such as cornucopia or the point of an anvil. | One of the two corners of a crescent, particularly of the crescent moon | An object whose shape resembles a horn, such as cornucopia or the point of an anvil. | The high pommel of a saddle; also, either of the projections on a lady's saddle for supporting the leg. | An object whose shape resembles a horn, such as cornucopia or the point of an anvil. | The Ionic volute. | An object whose shape resembles a horn, such as cornucopia or the point of an anvil. | The outer end of a crosstree; also, one of the projections forming the jaws of a gaff, boom, etc. | An object whose shape resembles a horn, such as cornucopia or the point of an anvil. | A curved projection on the fore part of a plane. | An object whose shape resembles a horn, such as cornucopia or the point of an anvil. | One of the projections at the four corners of the Jewish altar of burnt offering. | Any of several musical wind instruments. | An instrument resembling a musical horn and used to signal others. | A loud alarm, especially one on a motor vehicle. | A sound signaling the expiration of time. | A conical device used to direct waves. | Generally, any brass wind instrument. | A telephone. | An erection of the penis. | A peninsula or projecting tract of land. | A diacritical mark that may be attached to the top right corner of the letters o and u when writing in Vietnamese, thus forming ơ and ư. | An incurved, tapering and pointed appendage found in the flowers of the milkweed (Asclepias). | In naval mine warfare, a projection from the mine shell of some contact mines which, when broken or bent by contact, causes the mine to fire.

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