unicorn n.
1. a cuckold; also as adj. [play on horn n.1 ].
![]() | Wonderfull Yeare 134: The unicorne cobler . . . being over head and eares in sleepe . . . softly out-steales sir Paris, and to Helenaes teeth [taste] prooved himselfe a true Trojan. | |
![]() | Northward Hoe IV i: This traine was laid by the baggage herself, and Fetherstone, who [...] makes her husband a vnicorne. |
2. a coach drawn by three horses, two abreast and one in the lead; also attrib.
, , | ![]() | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
![]() | Belinda (1833) 322: Let me drive you out some day in my unicorn. | |
![]() | Lex. Balatronicum. | |
![]() | Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | |
![]() | Our Antipodes I 139: Mr. Seale’s best [...] four horses (unicorn at least!). | |
![]() | Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 242: unicorn a style of driving with two wheelers abreast and one leader ― termed in the United States a spike team. | |
![]() | ‘Some Road Slang Terms’ in Malet Annals of the Road 389: 1. Of Horses Pickaxe team or unicorn...Three [i.e. horses in a team]. | |
![]() | Bulletin (Sydney) 30 Aug. 24/2: Twenty couples and one ‘unicorn leader’ made up the team. [...] The ‘unicorn’ man [...] had even less ‘purchase’ on the chains than his comrades. His hands were free, but a rope pulled round his waist, and was fastened to the end of the chain. [...] [T]he wretch harnessed as solitary ‘leader’ could not relax his exertions for a second without being found out. | |
![]() | Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 255/1: Unicorn carman (L. Streets’, 19 cent.). Driver of three horses harnessed tandem. |
3. a woman and two men/two women and a man in league for criminal purposes.
![]() | Vocabulum. | |
![]() | Sl. and Its Analogues. | |
![]() | Aus. Sl. Dict. 91: Unicorn, two men and one woman stealing in company, a style of driving with two wheelers abreast and one leader. |
4. a second, bisexual woman who will join a heterosexual couple for intercourse [joc. ref. to the trad. unlikelihood of meeting the mythical creature].
![]() | Twitter 7 Dec. 🌐 Lot of men on Tinder currently ‘looking for a unicorn’ which I thought was slang for a bisexual woman who will shag them and their girlfriend and not expect any emotional involvement from either. |
SE in slang uses
In phrases
to make a display of oneself.
![]() | Adventures of Mr Verdant Green (1982) I 129: Mr Bouncer ‘went the complete unicorn’ for the last time in the term, by extemporising a farewell solo to Verdant which was of [...] an agonising character of execution. | |
![]() | Essex Newsman 8 July 2/7: Going the Complete Unicorn at Colchester [...] Henry Byford, a labourer, was charged with being drunk and disorderly. |