Also -copiæ. [A late L. form, written as one word, of the earlier cornū cōpiæ ‘horn of plenty’; fabled to be the horn of the goat Amalthea by which the infant Zeus was suckled; the symbol of fruitfulness and plenty.]
The horn of plenty; a goat’s horn represented in art as overflowing with flowers, fruit and corn.
1592. Greene, Maiden’s Dream, Poems 133. [Hospitality] With her cornucopia in her fist.
1611. Bible, Transl. Pref., 3. Men talke much … of Cornu-copia, that it had all things necessary for foode in it.
1623. Ford, Sun’s Darling, IV. i. When Plenty, Summer’s daughter, empties daily Her Cornucopia, filled with choicest viands.
1670. Lassels, Voy. Italy, II. 327. Candlesticks of pure gold made like cornucopias.
1762–71. H. Walpole, Vertue’s Anecd. Paint. (1786), V. 117. Small head in an oval frame, with cornucopiæs and stone-work.
1794. R. J. Sulivan, View Nat., IV. 197. Ceres … with her bounteous cornucopia.
1872. Spurgeon, Treas. Dav., Ps. lxviii. 9. The Lord, as from a cornucopia, shook out blessings upon it [the earth].
1878. Bates, Centr. Amer., iii. 24. In shape presenting the appearance of a cornucopia with its mouth turned northwards, Mexico forms a vast isthmus.
b. An ornamental vessel or receptacle shaped like the horn of plenty.
1863. Whyte-Melville, Gladiators, II. 267. A flagon or two of wine, and a golden cornucopia of fruit and flowers.
c. fig. An overflowing stock or store.
1611. Coryat, Crudities, To Rdr. Fertill territories replenished with a very Cornucopia of al manner of commodities.
1655. Fuller, Ch. Hist., I. vi. § 11. That County [Cornwall] is the Cornu-copia of saints.
1734. Swift, Corinna, Wks. 1775, III. II. 154. Her common-place book … Of scandal … a cornucopia.
1853. C. Brontë, Villette, xix. My sympathy desired to keep its cornucopia replenished.
d. humorously. The ‘horn’ of cuckoldry.
1600. J. Lane, Tom Tel-troth, 675. With cornucopia, Cornewall and the horne, Which their bad wiues bid from their bed be sent.
1878. J. W. Ebsworth, Bagford Ballads, 294. The ironical praise of Cuckolds … may be studied with advantage by mature students, who do not believe that the Cornucopia was a new ornament.
