Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The antler of a hart, formerly used as a source of ammonia and in smelling salts.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The antler of the hart or stag, Cervus elaphus.
  • noun Spirit of hartshorn; ammonia.
  • noun In botany See hartshorn-plantain.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The horn or antler of the hart, or male red deer.
  • noun Spirits of hartshorn (see below); volatile salts.
  • noun (Bot.) an annual species of plantain (Plantago Coronopus); -- called also buck's-horn.
  • noun originally taken from the horns of harts, are now obtained chiefly by planing down the bones of calves. They afford a kind of jelly.
  • noun (Chem.) an impure solid carbonate of ammonia, obtained by the destructive distillation of hartshorn, or any kind of bone; volatile salts.
  • noun (Chem.) a solution of ammonia in water; -- so called because formerly obtained from hartshorn shavings by destructive distillation. Similar ammoniacal solutions from other sources have received the same name.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The antler of a hart, once used as a source of ammonia.
  • noun dated An aqueous solution of ammonia; smelling salts.
  • verb transitive To revive with hartshorn smelling salts.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

hart +‎ 's +‎ horn.

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Examples

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  • Calcined deer antler that was used to replace lead white when mixing yellow orpiment pigment.

    February 27, 2010