Where have all the Unipegs gone? They became Alicorns!

[Malicieuse]

I call them winged unicorns too. To me an alicorn will always be the horn of a unicorn.

[Aurora]

Ladymoondancer, I actually pointed at the screen and went "Yes!" when I read yours! I think it's in the Adept series, Piers Anthony calls them Alicorns so I've always assumed that was right. This is the first time I've heard of it being the word for the material the horn is made of- I guess I assumed that was bone. I actually contemplated whether it was bone or the material that horns/antlers are made of, but since they don't grow back, they must be bone.

Interesting note- one of the sites that popped up when I googled "Alicorn" said there's a ruby at the base of the horn called a carbuncle. Now I'm SURE that is something else, and I would not want one stuck to my head! *pirate voice* "D'ar, all me power comes from carbuncles!"

[hathorcat]

As far as I know, Piers Anthony introduced "alicorn" for winged unicorns in one of his books.  Before that it meant "the horn of a unicorn."

These days I go with winged unicorn or alicorn.  I never use pegacorn or unipeg, they just sound "bleh" to me.

Yes I believe thats the source of the problem Anthony called his griffin x unicorn creatures Alicorns and from there it seemed to stick as a name sometimes - I think they also have been called unisus which I think is even odder!

Personally I go with "winged unicorns"

[BrightSide]

'Unipeg' makes me think of a clothes peg with a horn.

Alicorn is a wonderful sounding word. I'd use that when speaking about them, but upon sight would recognise said creature as a winged unicorn.

[Desert Rose]

I gotta be honest, it wasn't untill I recently came back to the MLP community that I heard the term "Alicorn" for the first time. And I couldn't for the life of me figure out how you get Alicorn from Pegasus/Unicorn

Before, if I remember correctly - it has been 5 years , when I was last involved in the pony community the most common term for them seemd to be "Unipeg". And I could always clearly see where that term came from. Squishing the name Unicorn and Pegasus together creating one word of it instead. So that never struck me as odd.
It's a common thing to do so. I mean we can just look at the term Brony. Basicly the same thing - two words squished into one

I have to admit though I never heard Pegacorn either before hehe. But it doesn't strike me as odd either since it's the same thing, two words made into one. Completely understandable to see what you're refering to.

So for me they've always been known as Unipegs However, since I got back and heard the term Alicorn beeing tossed around it kinda got stuck in my brain and I find myself calling them that aswell these days

[Sarah-Bee]

I also had never heard Alicorn used to describe the actual creature before FiM/G4, I always understood it to be the name for the unicorn's horn and therefore have never adopted it for a name for winged unicorns. I do refer to them as Unipegs but never Pegacorns, I don't like that one

[Moss]

I use alicorn now, but I never heard the term before FiM. Come to think of it, I don't know what I called them before. I think I just called them pegasi, actually! Alicorn sounds nice to me, and I like giving them their own name.

[Gonzo]

I call them alicorns; never heard the term used to refer only to a uni's horn until now.

[Ivy]

Piers Anthony has been referred to them as Alicorns in pretty much all of his books since the 70's.

Ala =Latin for wings.
Corn =Latin for horn

so put them together - Alicorn =Winged horn simple as that.

I've always referred to myself as an Alicorn - albeit a crazy one and it's been going on almost 20 years now...

[Desert Rose]

Piers Anthony has been referred to them as Alicorns in pretty much all of his books since the 70's.

Ala =Latin for wings.
Corn =Latin for horn

so put them together - Alicorn =Winged horn simple as that.

I've always referred to myself as an Alicorn - albeit a crazy one.

Well as someone already mentioned, it should be Alacorn then shouldn't it?

[Ivy]

think it has something to do when you add suffixes that changes it to an 'i' not sure - ala, ali and al all are attached to the latin for wing though...

[ChenilleTwist]

Yes, while Alicorn does refer to the horn itself, the term has been used as an alternate name for Unicorn as well, so while using the term to describe a creature is not wrong per se, it does refer only to the unicorn! (it does not mention this on the wikipedia article, but I have a number of creature encyclopedias that say "Alternate name of the European Unicorn" under the entry for Alicorn)

The reason it's become a little more accepted as a term for the winged pegasus is because one of the animators was using the name to refer to them. It's a little less clunky and pretty much gets the point across! Considering the Winged Pegasus are like a pony goddess in the cartoon, something a little more elegant, less sounding like a mix and match creature and more like a whole being was somewhat necessary. And as it's been pointed out, there is some precedence for the term as it is!

[lilico]

By the way, isn't it, in latin 'Cornu' ==> a horn ?

Or did the Butterfly in 'the last unicorn' lie ?

Well, alicorn, pegacorns unipeg, winged unicorn... and what about Horned Pegasus ? 

[TokiBear]

I've also heard Alicorn used long before FiM but I personally refer to them as Winged Unicorns or Pegacorns. I had no idea Alicorn was the material of the horn. Learn something new everyday. Haha

[Dragonflitter]

Back when I was a teenager I belonged to an RPG online where you could invent your own alien species. One of the species there was an Aliroo (a winged kangaroo!) and the person who made up the species said it was because ala/ali was latin for wing.

Funny enough, there was also a species in that RPG called Alicats which were cats with pegasus wings and unicorn horns. She said she named that Alicats because alicorn means unicorn horn. Haha and yes we were all big Piers Anthony fans so no big surprise there!

Although I DO admit that in the pony community these days, I hear the term 'alicorn' to mean winged unicorn a lot more often from bronies than from older collectors, who I find usually use winged unicorn or pegacorn or something like that.

I use winged unicorn, and so does PonyIsland, an online game based on MLP.