The Anglo-Norman unicorn is a strange beast. And not only because it never existed. Whereas continental French has both unicorne and the altered form licorne (regarded by FEW 14,42b, and Hope, Lexical Borrowing , 42-43, as deriving from Italian, as a reduction of lunicorno where one syllable is lost, so l(un)icorno became licorno ). English has only the one form though licorn is attested in the obsolete (nineteenth-century) sense of ‘old name for the howitzer of the last century, then but a kind of mortar fitted on a field-carriage to fire shells at low angles’ (OED sub licorn ). Licornus is not attested in the DMBLS though presumably unicornus will be, as the latter is equally attested in late classical Latin. Anglo-Norman however, seemingly only has the one form, unicorne and was used to refer to both the (mythological) unicorn or any (re...
A blog that highlights and discusses interesting words in the Anglo-Norman language, presented by the editorial team of the Anglo-Norman Dictionary (www.anglo-norman.net).