: a mythical, usually white animal generally depicted with the body and head of a horse with long flowing mane and tail and a single often spiraled horn in the middle of the forehead
b
: an animal mentioned in the Bible that is usually considered an aurochs, a one-horned rhinoceros, or an antelope
2
: something unusual, rare, or unique
There's the elusive unicorn: headphones that do everything well and work in any situation.—Damon Darlin
In Washington, D.C., truth is now a veritable unicorn.—Marilyn M. Singleton
… he's like baseball's version of a unicorn—a true two-way player.—Tony Paul
3
business: a start-up that is valued at one billion dollars or more
… a tech unicorn in Michigan is even more of a rarity, far from Silicon Valley's investor echo chamber.—Scott Martin
The blockbuster initial public offering is expected to kick off a revitalized market this year, encouraging IPO debuts by other unicorns, the privately held start-ups whose hefty venture capital funds have allowed them to avoid Wall Street and the legal requirements of a public offering.—Jon Swartz
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Data from Crunchbase shows that 25 unicorns having gone public or been acquired between May 2024 and May 2025, compared with 15 over the same period in the previous year.—Ganesh Rao, CNBC, 4 Sep. 2025 With six unicorns under his belt, Lefkofsky is not ready to give up the CEO’s role at Tempus anytime soon.—Robert Channick, Chicago Tribune, 3 Sep. 2025 Josey just so happens to be one of those unicorns.—Mya Abraham, VIBE.com, 3 Sep. 2025 New Entrants To The Unicorn Club July also welcomed several new unicorns that reflect the same infrastructure-first focus shaping the broader market.—Arthur Mouratov, Forbes.com, 2 Sep. 2025 See All Example Sentences for unicorn
Word History
Etymology
Middle English unicorne, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin unicornis, from Latin, having one horn, from uni- + cornu horn — more at horn
: an imaginary animal generally represented with the body and head of a horse and a single horn in the middle of the forehead
Etymology
Middle English unicorne "unicorn," from early French unicorne (same meaning), derived from Latin unicornis "having one horn," from uni- "one" and cornu "horn" — related to cornentry 3, universe
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