# unicorn
## English
### Etymology

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.

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈjuːnɪkɔːn/
* (US) IPA: /ˈjunɪkɔɹn/
* Audio (General Australian):(file)

### Noun

unicorn (plural unicorns)
* A mythical beast resembling a horse or deer with a single, straight, spiraled horn projecting from its forehead.
    Hyponyms: pegacorn, unipeg, unisus
    Meronym: alicorn
    Holonym: blessing
** 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
** 2022 July 15, Emily Cochrane, “Manchin Dangles Hopes of a Future Compromise. Democrats Revolt.”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:On Capitol Hill, Mr. Manchin is something of a unicorn — the only national Democrat from his ruby-red state — and acts and votes accordingly.
** (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: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: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: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.
* Certain animals:
** A Siberian unicorn, †Elasmotherium sibiricum.
** An Asian unicorn, or saola, Pseudoryx nghetinhensis.

#### Derived terms

* Asian unicorn
* Chinese unicorn
* half-unicorn
* Invisible Pink Unicorn
* rainbows and unicorns
* rainbow unicorns
* sea unicorn
* Siberian unicorn
* unicorn bait
* unicorn barf
* unicorn beast
* unicorn hunter
* unicorn hunting
* unicornic
* unicornlike
* unicorn plant
* unicorn puke
* unicorn root
* unicorn vomit

#### Translations
### Verb

unicorn (third-person singular simple present unicorns, present participle unicorning, simple past and past participle unicorned)
* (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

unicorn (not comparable)
* Having one horn.
* Rare and hard to find.

#### Derived terms

* unicornity

### See also

* alicorn
* bicorne
* blessing
* monoceros
* qilin, kirin
* reem
* tricorn, tricorne

### References

* ↑ 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

* unicorn on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
* Category:Category:unicorns on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
* unicorns on Wikiquote.Wikiquote
* “unicorn”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

## Catalan
### Noun

unicorn m (plural unicorns)
* unicorn
    Synonym: alicorn

## Middle English
### Noun

unicorn
* Alternative form of unicorne

## Romanian
### Etymology

Borrowed from French unicorne. Equivalent to uni- +‎ corn (“horn”).

### Adjective

unicorn m or n (feminine singular unicornă, masculine plural unicorni, feminine and neuter plural unicorne)
* one-horned