"Unicorn" comes from the French and late Latin, with the "cornus" part meaning "horn". I am wondering what other English words share this root. I could think of "rhinoceros". Can you think of something (or multiple somethings) else?
Learn English – “Unicorn”: what other words have this “cornus” etymology
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Best Answer
The Latin word for horn is cornu, stem cornu- (with null-inflection in the nominative case). Note that Latin cornus, "cornel/dogwood", comes from a different Proto-Indo-European root and is not related. Rhinoceros comes from Greek keras, horn.
Both Latin cornu and Greek keras come from the same PIE root
*ḱer- (very frequently, and seemingly somewhat at random, expanded to*ḱerh₂- ), which meant something like "horn, head" (note that there appear to be other PIE roots*ker- that are not related).The examples Snumpy and Trideceth gave all come from Latin cornu-. The following words come from the PIE root
*ḱer- through Latin, but not from Latin cornu-:The word horn comes from the same PIE root, but not through Latin: the /k/ sound was lenited to /x/ or /h/ in Proto-Germanic, as Colin Fine said, which is why we have /h/ now, just as in other Germanic languages.