inkhorn

From Middle English ynkhorn, inkehorn (“small portable vessel, originally made of horn, used to hold ink”), equivalent to ink +‎ horn. Displaced Old English blæchorn, which had the same literal meaning but with the native term for "ink."

• IPA^(key): /ˈɪŋkˌhɔː(ɹ)n/

inkhorn (plural inkhorns)

1. (archaic) A small portable container, often made of horn, used to carry ink.
   • 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, scene v]:

     Go, good partner, go, get you to Francis Seacole; bid him bring his pen and inkhorn to the gaol: we are now to examination these men.

   • 1847 November 1, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie, Boston, Mass.: William D. Ticknor & Company, OCLC 12526426, page 44:

     […] from his pocket the notary drew his papers and inkhorn,
     Wrote with a steady hand the date and the age of the parties,

2. (used attributively, derogatory, of vocabulary) Pedantic, obscurely scholarly.
   • 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, scene i]:

     And ere that we will suffer such a prince,
     So kind a father of the commonweal,
     To be disgraced by an inkhorn mate,
     We and our wives and children all will fight
     And have our bodies slaughtered by thy foes.

• inkhornish
• inkhornism
• inkhornize
• inkhorn term / inkhorn word (see also gallipot words (gallipot))

inkhorn

1. Alternative form of ynkhorn