unicorn
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Middle English unicorne, unikorn, from Anglo-Norman unicorne, Old French unicorne, and their source, Latin ūnicornis, from ūnus (“one”) + cornū (“horn”). Other senses from either rarity (e.g., possessing multiple skills) or by physical resemblance to having a horn (e.g., howitzer). The finance sense was coined by American investor Aileen Lee and first used in a 2013 article.[1]
Pronunciation
[edit]- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈjuːnɪkɔːn/
- (US) IPA(key): /ˈjunɪkɔɹn/
Audio (General Australian): (file)
Noun
[edit]unicorn (plural unicorns)
- A mythical beast resembling a horse or deer with a single, straight, spiraled horn projecting from its forehead.
- 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 106:
- The unicorn who may be touched and tamed only by a chaste virgin is a lunar symbol of the ancient religion of Europe.
- (historical) In various Bible translations, used to render the Latin unicornis or rhinoceros (representing Hebrew רְאֵם): a reem or wild ox.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Numbers 24:8, column 1:
- God brought him forth out of Egypt, he hath as it were the ſtrength of an Vnicorne: he ſhall eate vp the nations his enemies, and ſhall breake their bones, and pierce them thorow with his arrowes.
- Any large beetle having a horn-like prominence on the head or prothorax, especially the Hercules beetle, Dynastes tityus.
- A caterpillar, Schizura unicornis, with a large thorn-like spine on the back near its head.
- The kamichi, or unicorn bird.
- (military) A howitzer.
- 1898, Kate Douglas Wiggin, chapter 8, in Penelope’s Progress […], Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC:
- The Sixth Inniskilling Dragoons and the First Battalion Royal Scots will be in attendance, and there will be unicorns, carricks, pursuivants, heralds, mace-bearers, ushers, and pages, together with the Purse-bearer, and the Lyon King-of-Arms, and the national anthem, and the royal salute
- Someone or something that is rare and hard to find.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:rarity
- (sexual slang) A single, usually bisexual woman who participates in swinging or polyamory.
- (business) A person with multidisciplinary expertise, especially a laundry list of three or more skills in a young field such as UX design or data science (e.g., domain knowledge, statistics, and software engineering).
- Synonym: purple squirrel
- 2011 November 1, Braden Kowitz, “Hiring a designer: hunting the unicorn”, in Google Ventures[2]:
- But I also think, “They’re looking for a unicorn — a magical designer who can solve all their problems.” It’s too bad unicorns don’t exist. … I have never met a designer who is an expert in all those skill areas. … Even if you find a unicorn designer with all those skills, actually doing all those things at your company is a huge amount of work.
- 2015 October 3, Gil Press, “These Are The Skills You Need To (Eventually) Become A $240,000+ Unicorn Data Scientist”, in Forbes[3]:
- He believes that good data scientists, “otherwise known as unicorn data scientists,” have three types of expertise.
- (finance) A startup company whose valuation has exceeded one billion U.S. dollars, which is solely backed by venture capitalists, and which has yet to have an IPO.
- Coordinate term: decacorn
- 2016 October 3, Tad Friend, “Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny”, in The New Yorker[4]:
- As the price of Web hosting plummeted and PCs and cell phones proliferated, college and grad-school dropouts like Mark Zuckerberg or Larry Page and Sergey Brin could suddenly conjure unicorns on their laptops.
- 2017, Pongsak Hoontrakul, Economic Transformation and Business Opportunities in Asia, Springer, →ISBN, page 273:
- In May 2016, out of 163 global unicorns, China had 31, with a total valuation of $154 billion or about 26 percent of global unicorn valuation.
- (attributive) Being many (especially pastel) colours; multicoloured.
- unicorn smoothies
- (historical) A 15th-century Scottish gold coin worth 18 shillings, bearing the image of a unicorn.
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]
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Verb
[edit]unicorn (third-person singular simple present unicorns, present participle unicorning, simple past and past participle unicorned)
- (sexual slang) To participate in a sexual threesome as a bisexual addition to an established heterosexual couple.
- 2017 January 13, E.J. Dickson, “This is why you haven't had a threesome yet”, in New York Post:
- Katja*, 27, has unicorned on two separate occasions.
- 2017 September 16, Anna Fitzpatrick, “'The Ethical Slut': Inside America's Growing Acceptance of Polyamory”, in Rolling Stone:
- “In Annie’s unicorning, she’s really able to try out other people’s relationships and see how they function from within,” Gillespie tells me.
- 2018 August 14, Allison Tierney, How to Be a Great Third in a Threesome:
- “Everyone wants the party, but nobody likes to plan,” explains Vixen Vu, a cam model who has been unicorning since she became sexually active.
- 2019 September 10, “New Savage Lovecast: Dental Dams Spoiler Alert! (Nobody Uses Them.)”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):
- Also, Dan speaks with a bisexual man, whose first attempt at unicorning (yes, we verbed the word "unicorn,") went poorly, mainly due to his straight couple maybe getting a little too drunky?
- (finance) To exceed a valuation of one billion U.S. dollars, while solely backed by venture capitalists.
- 2014 November 3, Itay Hod, “The Airbnb of Home-Cooked Meals”, in Daily Beast:
- Since Waze, Soluto and Onavo, both Israeli startups, have had great exits in consumer tech, and Wix “unicorned” through its IPO.
- 2015 April 30, John Koetsier, “29 martech unicorns: There are now almost 30 $1B+ marketing technology vendors”, in Venture Beat:
- For eager investors looking to score in a future IPO, the eight still-private martech unicorns might be tempting. That list includes Domo, Slack, Sprinklr, Shopify, and EventBrite, all of which have “unicorned,” or surpassed the billion-dollar valuation mark, in the past year or two.
- 2018 April 1, Adrian Weckler, “Admit it: Irish tech is on the up”, in The Independent:
- For instance, at the same time as Intercom was announcing its unicorning moment, a young Dublin tech company called Let's Get Checked (letsgetchecked.com) raised €10m in a funding round.
Adjective
[edit]unicorn (not comparable)
- Having one horn.
- Rare and hard to find.
Derived terms
[edit]See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Aileen Lee (2013 November 2) “Welcome to the Unicorn Club: Learning from Billion-Dollar Startups”, in TechCrunch: “We found 39 companies belong to what we call the “Unicorn Club” (by our definition, U.S.-based software companies started since 2003 and valued at over $1 billion by public or private market investors).”
Further reading
[edit]- unicorn on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
- Category:Category:unicorns on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
- unicorns on Wikiquote.Wikiquote
- “unicorn”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
Catalan
[edit]Noun
[edit]unicorn m (plural unicorns)
- unicorn
- Synonym: alicorn
Middle English
[edit]Noun
[edit]unicorn
- Alternative form of unicorne
Romanian
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Borrowed from French unicorne. Equivalent to uni- + corn (“horn”).
Adjective
[edit]unicorn m or n (feminine singular unicornă, masculine plural unicorni, feminine and neuter plural unicorne)
- one-horned
Declension
[edit]singular | plural | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
masculine | neuter | feminine | masculine | neuter | feminine | ||
nominative/ accusative |
indefinite | unicorn | unicornă | unicorni | unicorne | ||
definite | unicornul | unicorna | unicornii | unicornele | |||
genitive/ dative |
indefinite | unicorn | unicorne | unicorni | unicorne | ||
definite | unicornului | unicornei | unicornilor | unicornelor |
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Anglo-Norman
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Latin
- English 3-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
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- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
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- en:Military
- English slang
- en:Business
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- English terms with usage examples
- English verbs
- English adjectives
- English uncomparable adjectives
- en:Colors
- en:Fantasy
- en:Heraldic charges
- en:Horses
- en:Mythological creatures
- en:Noctuoid moths
- en:Polyamory
- en:Scarabaeoids
- en:Screamers
- en:Stock characters
- Catalan lemmas
- Catalan nouns
- Catalan countable nouns
- Catalan masculine nouns
- Middle English lemmas
- Middle English nouns
- Romanian terms borrowed from French
- Romanian terms derived from French
- Romanian terms prefixed with uni-
- Romanian lemmas
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