Other forms: antlers
An antler is one of the branched horns a deer grows. A stag's antlers, shed the antlers, locked antlers.
They are bone rather than horn and are grown and dropped every year, which makes them the fastest-growing tissue of any mammal. The growing antler is covered in velvet, a living skin that is rubbed off when the bone hardens.
1nounantlerOne of the branched horns a deer grows.
“The stag's huge antlers got caught in the branches.”
antler is a growth.
Old French antoillier names the growth, probably from a Latin phrase meaning before the eye.
Latin
*anteocularis — before the eye
Old French
antoillier — antler, horn
Middle English
auntelere
English, today
antler
From Middle English auntelere, hauntelere, from Old French antoillier (“antler, horn”), from ante- + oillier (oil + -ier (a suffix indicating location)), possibly from an unattested Latin anteocularis (“before the eye”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA