The Collaborative International Dictionary
Monoceros \Mo*noc"e*ros\, n. [L., fr. Gr. ?; mo`nos alone, single + ke`ras horn.]
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A one-horned creature; a unicorn; a sea monster with one horn.
Mighty monoceroses with immeasured tails.
--Spenser. (Astron.) The Unicorn, a constellation situated to the east Orion.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
c.1300, "the unicorn," from Old French monoceros "unicorn," from Latin monoceros, from Greek monokeros, from mono- "single" (see mono-) + keras "horn" (see kerato-).\n\nThis is a modern constellation, generally supposed to have been first charted by Bartschius as Unicornu; but Olbers and Ideler say that it was of much earlier formation, the latter quoting allusions to it, in the work of 1564, as "the other Horse south of the Twins and the Crab"; and Scaliger found it on a Persian sphere.
[Richard Hinckley Allen, "Star Names and Their Meanings," London: 1899]
\n\nWiktionary
n. 1 (context obsolete English) a unicorn 2 (context obsolete English) a narwhal
Wikipedia
Monoceros ( Greek: Μονόκερως) is a faint constellation on the celestial equator. Its name is Greek for unicorn. Its definition is attributed to the 17th-century Dutch cartographer Petrus Plancius. It is bordered by Orion to the west, Gemini to the north, Canis Major to the south and Hydra to the east. Other bordering constellations include Canis Minor, Lepus and Puppis.
Monoceros is an album of solo soprano saxophone improvisations by British jazz saxophonist Evan Parker. It was recorded directly to disk using the direct-cut technique, with assistance from Numar Lubin, Gerald Reynolds and Michael Reynolds of Nimbus Records.
It was initially released on Evan Parker and Derek Bailey's Incus Records label in 1978, and later reissued on CD by the Chronoscope label.
The monoceros is a legendary animal with only one horn.
According to traditional Chinese uranography, the modern constellation Monoceros is located within the southern quadrant of the sky, which is symbolized as the The Vermillion Bird of the South (南方朱雀, Nán Fāng Zhū Què).
The name of the western constellation in modern Chinese is 麒麟座 (qí lín zuò), meaning "the qilin constellation".
Monoceros may refer to:
- Monoceros, a constellation on the celestial equator
- Monoceros (legendary creature), a legendary unicorn-like creature after which the constellation is named
- Monoceros (album), an Evan Parker jazz album
- Monoceros, a junior synonym for the sea snail genus Chorus
Usage examples of "monoceros".
It was the leocorn or, as Baudolino used to say when he was little, the leoncorn, or unicorn, the monoceros of his childish imaginings.
They were deep in the caecum of Monodon monoceros when Stephen, becoming aware of a silence on his right, looked up and met the delighted grin of Babbington and Byron.
He sees cypresses burning black and blue and gray, and he lifts his gaze to the canvas sky, vortexes of stars exploding, spirals and eddies and swirls of interstellar dust and there, always there, the planet Venus, an eye of God watching a great sun exploding in the direction of the constellation Monoceros, the Unicorn.
Behind him came a griffin, a wyvern, a four-footed whale, several carnivorous rabbits, a pair of trolls, a thunderbird, a sliver cat, a hippogriff, a satyr, a winged horse, three hoopsnakes, a pantheon, a firedrake, a monoceros, a double-headed eagle, a cyclops, a flight of barnacle geese, a chimera, and a number of creatures of less ordinary aspect that Dor could not identify in the rush.