hornbeam
horn·beam/ˈhoɹnˌbim/noun
hornbeam is a noun meaning “A tree of the genus Carpinus, having smooth grey bark and a ridged trunk, the wood being white and very hard, found in temperate regions of the…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled H-O-R-N-B-E-A-M and has 2 syllables (horn·beam), and it appears about once in every 12 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of hornbeam is hornbeams.
What does hornbeam mean?
noun
- 1
A tree of the genus Carpinus, having smooth grey bark and a ridged trunk, the wood being white and very hard, found in temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere.
- 2
Especially, the American hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana), which is common along the banks of streams in the United States.
- 3
Especially, the common hornbeam or European hornbeam (Carpinus betulus).
- 4
The wood of these trees or one species of them; (countable) a sample of such wood.
- 5
Synonym of beam (“the principal stem of the antler of a deer, which branches grow out from”).
- 6
obsoleteA beam or ray of light emanating from the head of a deity like a horn.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce hornbeam?
- UK /ˈhɔːnbiːm/
- US /ˈhoɹnˌbim/
Hornbeam has 2 syllables, split horn·beam in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_(NaomiAmethyst)-hornbeam.wav, En-us-hornbeam.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of hornbeam
- hornbeams plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is hornbeam?
Hornbeam appears about once in every 12 million words in written English, the 103,949th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Hornbeam in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense tree of the genus Carpinus:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.