Talk:Alicorn/@comment-67.186.209.21-20120411092242/@comment-142.166.222.44-20121201170413

When Latin words come together and form nominal compounds, a non-final word of the compound regularly takes the connecting vowel i, and the final word may or may not change its ending as well.

For example:


 * Unus ("one") + cornu ("horn") = stem uno- + stem cornu- = uni- + cornu- + -is/-us = Latin unicornis or unicornuus, which is unicorn in English.


 * Ala ("wing") + pes ("foot") = stem ala- + stem ped- = ali- + ped- = Latin alipes.

Similarly:


 * Ala ("wing") + cornu ("horn") = stem ala- + stem cornu- = ali- + cornu- + -is/-us = Neo-Latin alicornis or alicornuus, which is alicorn in English.

The Oxford English Dictionary has this in the etymology section for the word alicorn:


 * Italian alicorno unicorn (14th cent.), medicinal substance made from the horn of a unicorn (16th cent.), ultimately showing a variant or alteration of classical Latin ūnicornis unicorn n. (compare discussion of Romance forms at unicorn n.). Compare post-classical Latin alicornus (1551 or earlier).

I suspect that this is the older theory of etymology. But when people started to realize that alicorn could just as easily have been derived, according to the rules of Latin word-formation, from ala and cornu (which are indeed two words relevant to the winged unicorns that the word alicorn was used to refer to), the ala and cornu theory of etymology arose. Call this folk etymology if you will, but the word has more to do with the wing (ala) and the horn (cornu) than the one horn (unus and cornu) of the unicorn.