unicorn

noun

1. A mythical horse, widely believed to exist until the 17th century, with a single, straight, spiraled horn projecting from its forehead.

   “[Seb.] A liuing Drolerie: now I will beleeue / That there are Vnicornes:[…]”

   “The unicorn who may be touched and tamed only by a chaste virgin is a lunar symbol of the ancient religion of Europe.”

2. In various Bible translations, used to render the Latin unicornis or rhinoceros (representing Hebrew רְאֵם): a reem or wild ox.

   “God brought him forth out of Egypt, he hath as it were the ſtrength of an Vnicorne: he ſhall eate vp the nations his enemies, and ſhall breake their bones, and pierce them thorow with his arrowes.”

3. Certain animals:
4. Certain animals:
5. Certain animals:
6. Certain animals:
7. Certain animals:
8. A howitzer.

   “The Sixth Inniskilling Dragoons and the First Battalion Royal Scots will be in attendance, and there will be unicorns, carricks, pursuivants, heralds, mace-bearers, ushers, and pages, together with the Purse-bearer, and the Lyon King-of-Arms, and the national anthem, and the royal salute”

9. Someone or something that is rare and hard to find.

   “On Capitol Hill, Mr. Manchin is something of a unicorn — the only national Democrat from his ruby-red state — and acts and votes accordingly.”

10. (slang)Someone or something that is rare and hard to find.
11. Someone or something that is rare and hard to find.

    “But I also think, “They’re looking for a unicorn — a magical designer who can solve all their problems.” It’s too bad unicorns don’t exist. … I have never met a designer who is an expert in all those skill areas. … Even if you find a unicorn designer with all those skills, actually doing all those things at your company is a huge amount of work.”

    “He believes that good data scientists, “otherwise known as unicorn data scientists,” have three types of expertise.”

12. Someone or something that is rare and hard to find.

    “As the price of Web hosting plummeted and PCs and cell phones proliferated, college and grad-school dropouts like Mark Zuckerberg or Larry Page and Sergey Brin could suddenly conjure unicorns on their laptops.”

    “In May 2016, out of 163 global unicorns, China had 31, with a total valuation of $154 billion or about 26 percent of global unicorn valuation.”

13. Someone or something that is rare and hard to find.
14. (attributive)Being many (especially pastel) colours; multicoloured.

    “unicorn smoothies”

15. (historical)A 15th-century Scottish gold coin worth 18 shillings, bearing the image of a unicorn.

verb

1. (slang)To participate in a sexual threesome as a bisexual addition to an established heterosexual couple.

   “Katja*, 27, has unicorned on two separate occasions.”

   ““In Annie’s unicorning, she’s really able to try out other people’s relationships and see how they function from within,” Gillespie tells me.”

   ““Everyone wants the party, but nobody likes to plan,” explains Vixen Vu, a cam model who has been unicorning since she became sexually active.”

   “Also, Dan speaks with a bisexual man, whose first attempt at unicorning (yes, we verbed the word "unicorn,") went poorly, mainly due to his straight couple maybe getting a little too drunky?”

2. To exceed a valuation of one billion U.S. dollars, while solely backed by venture capitalists.

   “Since Waze, Soluto and Onavo, both Israeli startups, have had great exits in consumer tech, and Wix “unicorned” through its IPO.”

   “For eager investors looking to score in a future IPO, the eight still-private martech unicorns might be tempting. That list includes Domo, Slack, Sprinklr, Shopify, and EventBrite, all of which have “unicorned,” or surpassed the billion-dollar valuation mark, in the past year or two.”

   “For instance, at the same time as Intercom was announcing its unicorning moment, a young Dublin tech company called Let's Get Checked (letsgetchecked.com) raised €10m in a funding round.”

adj

1. (not-comparable)Having one horn.
2. (not-comparable)Rare and hard to find.