longicorn

From Latin longus (“long”) + cornu (“horn”). Compare French longicorne.

longicorn

1. (zoology) Long-horned.
2. (zoology, obsolete) Of or relating to the former taxonomic insect group Longicornia, encompassing numerous beetles with long antennae. Some are now classified as Cerambycidae (longhorn beetles).
   • 1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page ix:

     I must name Mr. F. P. Pascoe, late President of the Entomological Society of London, who had almost completed the classification and description of my large collection of Longicorn beetles (now in his possession), comprising more than a thousand species, of which at least nine hundred were previously undescribed and new to European cabinets.

longicorn (plural longicorns)

1. (obsolete) One of the Longicornia, a former taxonomic insect group of long-horned beetles.
   • 1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page xiii:

     Mr. William Wilson Saunders has kindly allowed me to figure the curious horned flies; and to Mr. Pascoe I am indebted for a loan of two of the very rare Longicorns which appear in the plate of Bornean beetles.

2. (dated, still found in many vernacular names) Synonym of longhorn beetle.

• “longicorn”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “longicorn”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “longicorn”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.