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• bighorn
  bighorn

  noun

  a wild sheep, Ovis canadensis, of the Rocky Mountains, with large, curving horns.
• Bighorn
  Bighorn

  noun

  a river flowing from central Wyoming to the Yellowstone River in S Montana. 336 miles (540 km) long.

bighorn

¹ American  

[big-hawrn] / ˈbɪgˌhɔrn /

noun

• bighorns,
  plural
• bighorn
  plural

1. a wild sheep, Ovis canadensis, of the Rocky Mountains, with large, curving horns.

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Bighorn ² American  

[big-hawrn] / ˈbɪgˌhɔrn /

noun

1. a river flowing from central Wyoming to the Yellowstone River in S Montana. 336 miles (540 km) long.

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bighorn British  

/ ˈbɪɡˌhɔːn /

noun

1. a large wild sheep, Ovis canadensis , inhabiting mountainous regions in North America and NE Asia: family Bovidae , order Artiodactyla . The male has massive curved horns, and the species is well adapted for climbing and leaping

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• bighorn
  plural
• bighorns
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of bighorn

An Americanism dating back to 1775–85; big ¹ + horn

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bighorn Bighorn bighorns

Lindsey and Lynette Melvin told the news station they first thought they were digging up bones of a bighorn sheep until they came across the jawbone.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026

Harmon alerted stakeholders, including Aiello, who was immediately concerned about how the wire might affect a herd of bighorn sheep that migrates across the border.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 3, 2026

The land abutting the Pinto Mountains Wilderness is also home to badgers, bighorn sheep and Mojave fringe-toed lizards.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 30, 2026

Here, in the Jacumba Wilderness, people are halted at the border by federal agents, but Peninsular bighorn sheep have long migrated back and forth.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 1, 2026

The bighorn sheep that had run past them were milling around on the far side of the bald.

From "Two Degrees" by Alan Gratz

Sitting Bull, one of the Lakota leaders at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, became a household name.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 2026

The rapper, 48, returned Bighorn Mountain Ranch, which sprawls across 6,713 acres, to the Flitner family, who first sold the “Gold Digger” hitmaker the land in 2019, after West neglected the ranch.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 29, 2025

The battle of Little Bighorn in 1876 was a high point, but not a turning point.

From Salon ● Sep. 1, 2024

Sitting with my wife, Judy, in our 1896 cabin in the Bighorn Mountains during a snowstorm, with a fire burning, discovering an author I’ve never read before.

From New York Times ● May 30, 2024

Jimmy knew about the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

From "In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse" by Joseph Marshall III

The NPS estimates that up to 200 bighorns live in Joshua Tree with a total population of around 13,000 across regions of California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 8, 2022

Desert bighorns are acrobats with soft, rubbery feet and spiraling horns that once thrived in mountain ranges across the Mojave Desert, where they formed a “metapopulation” of groups connected by ancient trails.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2021

Desert bighorns disappeared from the range in the late 1990s.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 23, 2017

On a recent Wednesday, the two were hiking in thigh-burning terrain to a point where the bighorns were spotted the week before.

From Washington Times ● Jul. 19, 2015

He just isn’t satisfied with jack rabbits where there used to be grizzlies and bighorns.

From The Young Alaskans on the Missouri by Emerson Hough

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