around the Horn
1
9.5
- idiom
:
dar la vuelta al Cabo de Hornos
- Seeking relief by mineral baths, he boarded a steamer and sailed around the Horn to San Francisco.
Examples
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A world of dust in your face and rain on your hat and ships beating their way around the Horn, where icebergs floated, where sleeting winds in the Drake Passage could drive a good man blind and a good ship backward.
Fiction book (1993) -
After months of planning, the captain finally set sail around the Horn to reach the west coast of America.
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Going around the Horn will take five months off our journey.
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Are you frightened to go around the Horn, Mr Christian?
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So he will be lashed and we will go around the Horn.
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The crew prepared for the challenging voyage around the Horn as they heard stories of the treacherous waters.
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Many sailors fear the journey around the Horn due to its notorious storms and rough seas.
Synonyms
7
3.2
Travel by boat around a place like a coast or lake
6
8.3
To travel all the way around something, for example the world, by ship or plane
Surface Forms
Morphology
around + the + Horn
The structure 'around' + a definite place name suggests traveling around a specific geographic feature, so learners can infer a notion of circumnavigation. However, a B1 learner who knows the words may not recognize 'the Horn' as Cape Horn or the specialized maritime/dangerous sense, so the full, culturally grounded meaning is not fully derivable without prior exposure.
Etymology
Around the Horn comes from the long sea trip sailors made around the southern tip of South America, the Horn, where strong winds and huge waves made the journey dangerous. So, to go around the Horn came to mean 'to sail by that long, difficult sea route'.