Meaning

noun any of several trees or shrubs of the genus Carpinus

originFrom Late Middle English hornbeme, hernbem, hernebem (“European hornbeam (Carpinus betulus)”), from horn (“antler or horn of an animal; etc.”) + bem (“tree; piece of metal, wood, etc.”) (referring to a tree with wood as hard as horn): * Horn is from Old English horn (“horn”), from Proto-West Germanic *horn (“horn”), from Proto-Germanic *hurną (“horn”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱerh₂- (“horn;…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0