horny

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English horny, equivalent to horn +‎ -y. Compare German hornig. Compare also Dutch hoornachtig, Swedish hornaktig, Old English hyrniġ (“angular”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈhɔːni/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈhoɹni/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)ni

Adjective

horny (comparative hornier, superlative horniest)

1. Hard or bony, like an animal's horn.

   Synonyms: callous, coarse, hardened, rough

   • 1951, C. S. Lewis, Prince Caspian, Collins, published 1998, Chapter 6:

     Two Dwarfs were at the bellows, another was holding a piece of red-hot metal on the anvil with a pair of tongs, a fourth was hammering it, and two, wiping their horny little hands on a greasy cloth, were coming forward to meet the visitors.

2. Having the hard consistency and pale colour of an animal's horn.

   Synonym: ceratose (en, biology)

   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     She could not see, for her whitish eyes were covered with a horny film.

3. Having horns.

   Synonym: horned

   • 2024 April 27, Karen M. Dvornich, “Short-horned Lizard”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)‎, archived from the original on 2010-10-28:

     In 1997, 4th and 5th grade Waterville Elementary students told me they saw Short-horned lizards (commonly known as Horny toads) all around their area.

Translations

Further reading

• “horny”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “horny”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• Jonathon Green (2024) “horny adj.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang

Etymology 2

From the phrase "having the horn", and similar phrases which were used to refer to male sexual arousal in the 18th century, later abbreviated to horn (a hard projection) +‎ -y (having the quality of); initially this referred to physical sexual response in males (the male erection being analogized as a "horn"), yet later was semantically generalized to refer not only to sexual arousal but also to sexual desire in both males and females.

Adjective

horny (comparative hornier, superlative horniest)

1. (slang, informal) Sexually aroused, with or without physical manifestation; experiencing a feeling of sexual desire.

   Synonyms: horned up, lustful, lusty, randy, toey, in heat; see also Thesaurus:randy

   • 1949, Henry Miller, Sexus (The Rosy Crucifixion), Grove Press, published 1965, →ISBN, page 104:

     [H]er thick, gurgling voice saying […] : "Get it in all the way… please, please do… I’m horny."

   • 1951, J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →OCLC, page 82:

     After a while I sat down in a chair and smoked a couple of cigarettes. I was feeling pretty horny. I have to admit it.

   • 1971 October, Black World, page 65/1:

     Ain’t that the horny bitch that was grindin with the blind dude.

   • 1993, “Back Seat (of My Jeep)”, in 14 Shots to the Dome, performed by LL Cool J:

     As I turn the corner, starin' in your cornea / You're gettin' hornier and hornier

   • 2019 December 13, Tracie Egan Morrissey, “The Year Women Got ‘Horny’”, in New York Times‎:

     “Mrs. Fletcher,” the HBO mini-series about a middle-aged woman’s sexual reawakening, showcases a horny mom who can’t stop masturbating to pornography.

   That we are horny creatures is proven by the fact that the invention of video calling found us already having sex over the phone.

   - Mokokoma Mokhonoana

   • 2014, David Burr Gerrard, Short Century :

     It’s something of a cliché, at least among war correspondents, that war makes people unusually horny; what it actually does is make you want to touch as much flesh as you can get your hands on.

   • 2015, Bink Cummings, MC Chronicles, The Diary of Bink Cummings, Vol. 2 :

     Horniness is just a mental state with a physical repercussion.

2. (slang, informal) Sexually arousing.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:sexy

   • 2003, Peep Show (TV series), Funeral (episode)

     Mark Corrigan: She should have to wear a mask for this kind of thing. Reagan or Batman or... actually she'd look pretty horny as Batman... Jesus, no, don't!

3. (of males, obsolete) In a state of physical sexual arousal: experiencing tentigo, tumescence of the penis as a result of sexual arousal.

   Synonyms: erect, excited, hard

Derived terms

• (sexually aroused): horniness, hornily

Descendants

• (sexually aroused): → Irish: adharcach (semantic loan)
• (sexually aroused): → Russian: хорни (xorni)
• (sexually aroused): → Saterland Frisian: honig

Translations