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In Greek mythology, Artemis transformed Actaeon into a stag with horns on his head. In European folklore, horns were considered the sign of a cuckold, whence the noun sense of Actaeon, "cuckold", and the verb sense "to cuckold", are derived. Compare horned, put horns on, etc.
1979, Eric S. Rabkin, Fantastic Worlds: Myths, Tales, and Stories, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 62:
Amid so much prosperity, it was one of his grandsons, Actaeon, who first brought distress to Cadmus, when antlers, foreign to his human shape, sprouted from the youth's forehead, and his hounds gorged themselves on their master's blood.
1814, Commentaries on the laws of Moses, volume 4, a translation of Johann David Michaelis' German text by Alexander Smith: a footnote on page 127:
but I had the story from some French officers of distinction, who mentioned the name of the injured and prudent husband, and that he was a person of very high rank. That name, however, even if I had not forgotten it, I should not think it fair to repeat, because it would seem to be a matter of some moment to the gentleman though he was an Acteon, not to be thought so.
1819, The Hermit in London, published in The Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, number 126 (published on June 19, and reprinted in the compilation of Gazette issues printed at the end of the year by William Pople):
He once lost a friend by kindly inquiring after his wife, who had made an Acteon of him, first by the head ornament presented, and secondly by sending him to the dogs in the way of pecuniary circumstances.
1960 [1932], Dame Rose Macaulay, They Were Defeated, Collins, page 75:
If she don't make Actaeon of him before she's done, I'm a bishop.
Verb
Actaeon (third-person singular simple presentActaeons, present participleActaeoning, simple past and past participleActaeoned)
1987 [1582], George Whetstone, edited by Diana Shklanka, An Heptameron of Civill Discourses, Garland Publishing, Inc., page 144:
[…] where vaine glorious Ixion Proclaymed, that he was the Minion of Juno, and had Acteoned Jupiter: for which arrogancie, Jupiter threw him to Hell, with this pictured vengeaunce.
Zuc. […] was I not a handſome fellow from my foote to my feather, had I not wit, nay, which is more, was I not a Don. and didſt thou Acteon me, did I not make thee a Lady. Herc. And did ſhe not make you a more worſhipfull thing, a Cuckold.
1620, Alexander Niccholes, A Discourse of Marriage and Wiving, London, page 35:
There are of opinion that there is in Marriage an ineuitable desteny, not to be auoided which is either to be Acteond [OED actæoned] or not to be […]
[Francis] Grose [et al.] (1811) “Actaeon”, in Lexicon Balatronicum. A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence., London: C. Chappell,, →OCLC.
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