Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word hornbook. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word hornbook, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say hornbook in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word hornbook you have here. The definition of the word hornbook will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofhornbook, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
English
Detail of The Allegory of Grammar by Gregor Reisch: Nicostrata, legendary inventor of the letters of the alphabet, which she holds up in a hornbook (1) with one hand, here personifies Grammar and works the key to a tower of learning for a child who she invites to enter.[1]
, volume I (A–K), London: J and P Knapton; , →OCLC, column 1:
HO′RNBOOK. n.ʃ. [horn and book] The firſt book of children, covered vvith horn to keep it unſoiled.]
1913, Katharine Lee Bates, Lilla Weed, Shakespeare: Selective Bibliography and Biographical Notes, page 41:
By way of the hornbook Shakespeare would have learned to read, […]
1999, Nigel Wheale, Writing and Society: Literacy, Print, and Politics in Britain, 1590-1660, page 43:
Infants learned their letters from a hornbook, a square of wood shaped like a table-tennis bat on which were pasted the alphabet, syllables and the Lord's Prayer […]
2002, Nila Banton Smith, American Reading Instruction, page 14:
The hornbook is the first piece of instructional material specifically mentioned in American records.
Not only is it difficult to extract just the right doozy of an adjective out of the hornbook, but the maneuver can be performed at most twice in the course of an article or chapter.
