hornbook
noun
hornbook is a noun meaning “A single page containing the alphabet, covered with a sheet of transparent horn, formerly used for teaching children to read” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled H-O-R-N-B-O-O-K and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 39 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of hornbook is hornbooks.
What does hornbook mean?
noun
- 1
A single page containing the alphabet, covered with a sheet of transparent horn, formerly used for teaching children to read.
- 2
A legal textbook that provides a basic overview of a particular area of law.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce hornbook?
Hornbook has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of hornbook
- hornbooks plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is hornbook?
Hornbook appears about once in every 39 million words in written English, the 191,932nd 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).
Where does hornbook come from?
From horn + book.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).