hornbook

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun a primer that provides instruction in the rudiments or basic skills of a branch of knowledge

From horn + book.

Decker's Gul's Hornbook, 1609. p. 30. — Microcosmography: or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters, John Earle
Yes, yes, he teaches boys the hornbook. — Love's Labour's Lost, William Shakespeare
To these experiences we owe not only those excellent drinking songs, John Barleycorn and Willie Brewed a Peck o' Maut, but the headlong fun of Tam O'Shanter, the visions, grotesquely terrible, of Death and Dr. Hornbook, and the dramatic humor of the Jolly Beggars. — From Chaucer to Tennyson: With Twenty-Nine Portraits and Selections from Thirty Authors, Henry A. (Henry Augustin) Beers

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