The Etymology of Unicorn
The unicorn is a mistranslation that became a myth.βββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ Around 400 BCE, the Greek physician Ctesias wrote about a wild animal in India with a single horn on its forehead, almost certainly based on garbled accounts of the Indian rhinoceros seen from a distance. He used the word 'monokeros' (single-horned), and the description entered the Western imagination. Centuries later, when Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek (the Septuagint), they needed a word for 're'em' β a powerful horned beast, probably the now-extinct aurochs. They chose 'monokeros,' and when St Jerome translated the Bible into Latin around 400 CE, he rendered it 'Ε«nicornis,' from 'Ε«nus' (one) and 'cornΕ«' (horn).