unicorn

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A fabled creature symbolic of virginity and usually represented as a horse with a single straight spiraled horn projecting from its forehead.
2. n. Heraldry A representation of this beast, having a horse's body, a stag's legs, a lion's tail, and a straight spiraled horn growing from its forehead, especially employed as a supporter for the Royal Arms of Great Britain or of Scotland.
3. n. Astronomy The constellation Monoceros.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A traditional or fabulous animal, with a single long horn, the monoceros of classic writers, commonly described as a native of India, but in terms not certainly applicable to any known animal. It is supposed that one of the several large antelopes may have furnished the basis of fact of accounts, since the long straight or recurved horns viewed in profile would appear single. See def. 3.
2. n. A mistranslation in the authorized version of the Bible (Deut. xxxiii. 17, and elsewhere) of the Hebrew word re'ēm. This named a two-horned animal, which has been supposed to be the urns. In the revised version the word is translated wild-ox.
3. n. In heraldry, the representation of the fabulous animal used as a bearing. It is delineated as a horse, but with the tail of a lion and a long straight horn growing out of the forehead between the ears; often the hoofs are represented as cloven. The actual animal most like this bearing is the gnu.
4. n. The unicorn-fish, unicorn-whale, sea-unicorn, or narwhal, whose enormously long single incisor tooth projects like a horn. See Monodon, monoceros, 3.
5. n. The kamichi or horned screamer, Palamedea cornuta; the unicorn-bird. N. Grew. See cut under Palamedea.
6. n. A kind of beetle having a single long horn; a unicorn-beetle. Various large beetles literally answer to this definition, being unicornous, with a large single prothoracic horn. See Dynastes, elephant-beetle, Hercules-beetle.
7. n. In conchology, a unicorn-shell. See cut under Monoceros.
8. n. A pair of horses with a third horse in front; also, the whole equipage.
9. n. A Scottish gold coin issued by James III., James IV., and James V., having the figure of a unicorn on the obverse. Its standard weight was 58.89 grains troy, and it was current for 23 shillings Scotch.
10. n. [capitalized] In astronomy, the constellation Monoceros.

Wiktionary

1. n. A mythical beast traditionally represented as having the legs of a buck, the body of a horse, the tail of a lion with a single spiral horn on its head; a symbol of virginity.
2. n. A heraldic representation of such a beast used as a charge or as a supporter; as in the arms of Great Britain and of Scotland.
3. n. historical In various Bible translations, used to render the Latin unicornis or rhinoceros (representing Hebrew רְאֵם); a reem or wild ox.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A fabulous animal with one horn; the monoceros; -- often represented in heraldry as a supporter.
2. n. A two-horned animal of some unknown kind, so called in the Authorized Version of the Scriptures.
3. n. Any large beetle having a hornlike prominence on the head or prothorax.
4. n. The larva of a unicorn moth.
5. n. (Zoöl.) The kamichi; -- called also unicorn bird.
6. n. (Mil.), obsolete A howitzer.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. an imaginary creature represented as a white horse with a long horn growing from its forehead