cow n.1
1. a woman, esp. an obese or unattractive one.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Ralph Roister Doister I iii: roister: I use to kiss all them that I love, to God I vow. tib. talk: Yea, sir? I pray you, when did ye last kiss your cow? | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | ‘The Bulls Feather’ in Broadside Ballads No. 23: There’s nere a proud Gallant / that treads on Cows leather, / But may be Cornuted, and wear the Bulls Feather. | |
| New World Words (5th edn) n.p.: Cow. The Emblem of [...] a Lazy, Dronish, beastly Woman, who is likened to a Cow. | |
| Essay on Woman 15: Ask of thy Mother’s Cunt why she was made / Of lesser Bore than Cow or hackney’d Jade? | |
| ‘Bucket of Water’ in I (1975) 46: We can sing a new song on a crafty old cow / That was call’d Tibby Crocket. | |
| Proc. Old Bailey 11 Sept. 502/2: SARAH HAIRBOTTLE [...] I said to the prisoner, says I, you villain, you are the man that stabbed my husband; the same morning he said, blast your eyes, you old cow. | |
| Sporting Mag. July XXII 189/2: A fellow lately conducted his wife with a halter round her neck [...] and announced publicly, that he wanted to sell his cow. | |
| Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 58: Cow — an opprobrium addressed to a fat woman. | |
| Pierce Egan’s Life in London 17 Sept. 687/2: ‘[H]e called me a nasty foreign cow; and I says, says I, if I am a foreign cow, your are an “English jackass”’. | |
| Proc. Old Bailey 13 May 84: I did not go up to her and say, ‘Come on, you b—old cow,’ nor any such expression—I did not abuse her or call her names, nor stand before her in a fighting way. | |
| Proc. Old Bailey 30 Mar. 990: He passed a woman who said, ‘You brute, how could you serve a woman in that way? you are no man’—he turned round and said, ‘You old cow, you ought to be served in the same way’ [...] he called me a b—old sow, a b—cow, and used other expressions. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bell’s Life in Sydney 25 May 3/2: [She] did not call Mrs. Jones a cow, or designate her by any other insinivating feminine appellation. | |
| Proc. Old Bailey 10 May 132: The male prisoner [...] said to her, ‘You have sold me at last, you b—y old cow’. | |
| ‘New Fashioned Pettitcoats’ in Curiosities of Street Lit. (1871) 147: The old cow had calved in her hooped pettitcoat. | |
| Proc. Old Bailey 30 Nov. 43: Are you satisfied now, you old cow? you have got my sisters punished; are you not now satisfied? | |
| Proc. Old Bailey 6 May 78: Murray was the first that came up to the window, making the expression ‘You bleeding old cow, I will gouge your eye out before the night is over’. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | ‘Vagrants & Vagrancy’ Appleton’s Journal (N.Y.) 6 Sept. 308: When a vagrant uses the word cow for woman, and heifer for girl, Mullingar heifer for a strong young maiden, as he and his tribe have done these hundred years, that is cant. | |
| Harvard Crimson 20 Dec. 🌐 In the Vassar girl’s classification all males are ‘men,’ and all females ‘cows,’ with the usual intensive adjectives strung before. [...] one Princeton man, under the encouraging smile of his ‘cow,’ slipped spoon after spoon to the inside pocket of his coat. | |
| Proc. Old Bailey 23 Mar. 826: He said, ‘Where is the old cow?’ and just then Harcourt was coming in at the door, and he said, ‘Who is he calling an old cow?’. | |
| Hooligan Nights 52: Git back, you bloomin’ old cow. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 27 Jan. 14/2: you manjey kow if you doant send this smawl amoun to your truley, i’l put you to a litle more expens you kow i av send you the bil for same three tims now you kow your truley – John Blank. | |
| Proc. Old Bailey 9 Sept. 896: He called me a f— old cow, I then threw the lamp at him. | |
| Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 170: Big blond cow! | |
| Proc. Old Bailey 28 June 265: He said, ‘I will burn you in your bed, you b—old cow,’ and then went away. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 19 Sept. 15/1: There arose the perfect gent., very red in the face and spluttering with indignation. ‘I say, you blokes, fair play now! Give the cow a show!’ The cow eventually got it, and thanked him in a speech from the platform. It all depends on how you say it. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Ulysses (1960) 362: Everyone to his taste as Morris said when he kissed the cow. | |
| This Gutter Life 246: God! I’ve been spat on all over the face by the poxiest lot of old cows in London. | |
| ‘Observation Post’ in N.Y. Age 14 Sept. 10/7: In case you don’t know what attracts so many fellahs to New Jersey it’s the fine ‘Jersey cows.’ Digg? | |
| Indiscreet Guide to Soho 30: The poor cow thinks he’s going to marry ’er when they’ve got enough dough! | |
| Three-Ha’Pence to the Angel 15: Needn’t think I’m ’aving some German cow in my ’ome. | |
 | Redemption in G. Feldman (ed.) Protest (1960) 106: Marie was a cow [...] She was still smiling that uncontrollable stupid cow smile. | |
| (con. 1940s) Borstal Boy 167: Old cow used to bring it ‘ome with ‘er. | |
| (con. 1948–52) Virgin Soldiers 28: He wasn’t going to have that little cow sitting in front of a mirror all day. | |
| Inside the Und. 54: The little cow [...] she’s got herself mixed up with the Law. | |
| Blow Your House Down 50: ‘Stuck up cow,’ Kath said, and jabbed two fingers in the air at the woman’s retreating back. | |
| Deathdeal [ebook] Stolle flush. He said, ‘You lousy cow’. | |
| (con. 1860s) Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem 177: It was that cow Aveline. | |
| TwentyFourSeven [film script] (1998) 9: Too fuckin’ late now I tells the fat cow, too fuckin’ late now. | |
| Happy Like Murderers 364: In Rose’s opinion DC Savage was a vindictive, interfering cow. | |
| Black Swan Green 45: I should’ve been born, hissed Unborn Twin, not you, you cow. | |
| Truth 213: Had this massage, the cow touched somethin, musta learnt the trade on horses. | |
| Life 390: Hey, you silly old cow, how you doing? | |
| Devil All the Time 253: [H]e would have went home and knocked up some old cow. | |
| Young Team 44: [T]roops n snaggles n healthy burds n mad rough scheme cows. | |
| Braywatch 382: What she lacks in beauty, she more than makes up for in being a sassy cow. |
2. a prostitute.
| Northward Hoe IV i: Are you a towne cowe and confesse you beare calues. | |
| Passenger of Benvenuto 315: Friendly wenches, cowes, women of sale, young Frighters, stales, or bawdes [N]. | |
| Thomaso Pt II I ii: A young longing Lover, that would onely have tasted of her Milk; what a jadish Cowes trick was that to kick down the pail. | |
| Vocabulum 21: cow A dilapidated prostitute. | |
| Truth (Melbourne) 17 Jan. 3/4: [She] called Kendall ‘a dirty drunken cow’ and accused witness of having gone on the streets and obtained money from men. | |
| Gilt Kid 76: He hadn’t had no crumpet. [...] There were plenty of cows up round Victoria Station. | |
| Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks n.p.: Cow: Prostitute. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| Cast the First Stone 252: cow A prostitute; one of a group of girls in a pimp’s stable. | |
| Reinhart in Love (1963) 47: ‘Action?’ asked Reinhart. ‘Jelly roll,’ answered the Maker. ‘I got me a stable of cows.’. | |
| Morning After Optimism in Plays: 3 (1994) Scene ii: Played it along with a single cow [...] when I could have had twenty top-notch harlots in my stall. | |
| Spike Island (1981) 133: Heard the latest complaint? [...] Uniformed policeman are laffin’ and jokin’ with the cows. | |
| Brown Bread in Wengen [ebook] ‘Noreen you’re a bleedin’ little tart you know that?’ ‘I know.’ ‘Barefaced little cow’. |
3. (Aus./N.Z.) an objectionable thing, a horrendous situation; also in phr. a cow of a thing [note 1901 Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Dec. 30/2: ‘All the cussedness of the bovine race is centred in the cow. In Australia, the most opprobrious epithet one can apply to a man or other object is “cow.” In the whole range of a bullock-driver’s vocabulary there is no word that expresses his blistering scorn so well as “cow.” To a species of feminine perversity a cow adds a fiendish ingenuity in making trouble’].
| ‘While Prose-Work and Rhymes’ in Merry Muses of Caledonia (1965) 56: Th’ Episcopal lawn, / And Presbyter band, / Hae lang been to ither a cowe. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Mar. Red Page/3: Our ’bus-driver had a jibber in t’other day, and there was the usual halt. After vain flogging, Tim, the driver, fervently ejaculated – ‘O you cow!’. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 3 Dec. 16/4: This ’ere bullock-punchin’ job’s a cow. Me hands is all blisters with layin the whip on to ’em. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 2 July 47/2: ‘Old cow!’ he grunted. Then he jerked his head back at the weather outside. ‘’S goin’ ter be a cow of a day.’. | |
| diary 29 May 🌐 All our regiment are in the trenches today and I suppose it will be a cow keeping in communication. | |
| Working Bullocks 200: The river’s a cow, this time of the year. | |
| Cobbers 115: This blanked drill’s a fair cow. | |
| (con. 1830s–60s) All That Swagger 409: I never read their cows of letters. | |
| Man From Clinkapella 3: ‘Cow of a night,’ I said, as he took off the wet cape. | |
| letter 3 Jan. in Leader (2000) 356: This, with buggering term starting next week – what do they think we are? teachers? – is a cow and no mistake. | |
| Bobbin Up (1961) 23: It’s enough to bring on a mis. Everyone knows what a cow of a thing it is, muckin’ up on you. | |
| Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 17: Cripes, I’ve had a real cow of a day. | |
| Aussie Swearers Guide 34: Cow. A judgment noun more often applied to things than to people. ‘The cow won’t start.’ (A car). ‘A cow to work in.’ (Geographical location or place of employment). ‘A cow of a day.’ (Unsatisfactory weather). | |
| Gold in Blood 131: [a car] I got blisters with cranking. She refused even to cough. ‘We’ll tow the cow,’ Jim said. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 53: cow Problem person or thing. |
4. (orig. Aus.) an objectionable individual (occas. of other living creatures).
| Bell’s Life in Victoria (Melbourne) 10 Oct. 3/2: The false report that was spread [...] as to the chestnut [horse] being ‘a cow in action and in heart,’ should not have been so implicitly believed in. | |
| ‘Two Sundowners’ in Roderick (1972) 101: He’d allers acted straight to him, and Brummy had acted like a ‘cow’. | |
| Truth (Sydney) 12 May 5/4: [of the authorities] I’d half made up my mind at the time to live square and had done nothing criminal for months, but the ‘cows’ won’t let a man live honest when he wants to. | |
| Princeton Stories 22: Oh, cork up, you big cow! | |
| ‘Lord Douglas’ in Roderick (1972) 497: I vote we kick the cow out of town. | |
| Proc. Old Bailey 7 Sept. 730: I met a gipsy, who said that he had an old mare he could do nothing with. He took me to a field in Folly Lane, showed it me, and said, ‘There she is, the old cow’. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Dec. 28/2: [of a shark] ‘I seen th’ cow comin’ at yer, Mister! I thought yer was a goner!’. | |
| Jonah 54: Serve the cow right [...] ’Ope it stiffens ’im! | |
| Truth (Perth) 28 Dec. 5/5: Now then all youse outback bushies, / Cockies, townies, pushites, too, / Get yer blanky frames-a-movin', / Come and help old Mother ’Roo / When the Jap comes burstin’ on yer/With a loud and horrid-yell,/ Cock yer guns and stand together— / Give ther cows fair dinkum hell. | |
| Aussie (France) 12 Mar. 5/2: Lucky! — why, if the cow fell into the sea he wouldn’t get wet! | |
| Mirror (Perth) 6 Nov. 12/2: He had been nothing but a mingy cow. | |
| Townsville Daily Bulletin (Qld) 1 Mar. 10/4: The cow nearly eat me and calls for a couple of pots. Chewin’ the beer, I’m whippin’ the cat. | |
| Western mail (Perth) 9 May 10/3: You’re a deceptive looking cow [...] Nobody would think you could stoush! | |
| Shearer’s Colt 44: Whadda you think of that, you cows? | |
| Battlers 79: Here’s Dick and me been sitting on our sterns all day waiting for the cow, and he don’t show up. | |
| Died in the Wool (1963) 186: Have it your own way, you blasted cow. | |
| Shiralee 122: The silly cow, makin’ up to the tabbies and that. | |
| Any Old Dollars, Mister? 122: If you little cows don’t ’op it [...] I’ll call a policeman, see! | |
| Holy Smoke 13: [of a whale] Just give us a go at the cow. [Ibid.] 55: Along comes this dirty great whale! Real big cow – ten axe-handles across the beam. | |
| IV Dress Gray (1979) 296: This guy in the company, a cow by the name of Ryder. | |
| Kullark 64: Cow like him probably ain’t got none. | |
| Guardian Weekend 5 June 67: You cow! How dare you! | |
| Base Nature [ebook] ‘Your mate Angie’s a right cow’. | |
| Empty Wigs (t/s) 723: Neo-Expressionist, it was suggested. Neo-Pissed-Off-With-That-Treacherous-Cowist, she corrected. |
5. an awkward or stupid person.
| Willoughby Captains (1887) 45: ‘Row, Bosher, can’t you, you old cow?’. | |
| Princeton Stories 22: Oh, cork up, you big cow! | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 18 Feb. 4/8: ‘Jim’ll ’ave ter do six months.’ ‘The pore silly cow’. | |
| ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 196: cow, a dull young man. | |
| (con. WWI) Somme Mud 11: Been cheap at the price, ya stingy Pommy cow. | |
| Townsville Daily Bulletin (Qld) 12 Dec. 6s/5: The silly cow been laugh like bloomin’ jackass. | |
| ‘Bushman’ in Tell Us About the Turkey, Jo 98: Trip the cow and, as he goes down, slip your knee up into the belly uv him and take his wind. | |
| Gun in My Hand 201: I saved a joker from drowning once [...] Pulled the poor cow out. Then he went and stepped on a bloody mine. | |
| One Day of the Year II iii: We poured bloody beer into the poor old cows till they couldn’t stand up. | |
| Holy Smoke 25: It’s the same with Me and some of those poor lost cows in the public bar here. |
6. (US) milk, cream.
| True Northerner (Paw Paw, MI) 19 Oct. 7/1: When I asked the blamed skunk for doughnuts and milk he yelled ‘Twisters and cow for one!’. | |
| Dead Bird (Sydney) 22 Mar. 1/3: A dandy at an hotel table who wanted the milk passed to him thus asked for it, ‘Please send your cow this way’. | |
| Princeton Stories 39: At the eating clubs they call the milk-pitcher the ‘cow’. | |
| N.-Y. Trib. section II, 27 July 2: There are many such phrases, some of them common to all the ‘grub-on-the-run’ places, some of them local. ‘A little on the cow’ is milk. ‘Draw one – black’ is coffee, without milk. | |
| Brand Blotters (1912) 239: Pass the cow and the sugar, Buck. | |
| Day Book (Chicago) 8 Sept. 17/1: ‘Couple of dougnuts and a cup of coffee without cream’ [...] ‘Two submarines and a mug of murk — no cow!’. | |
| ‘Logger Talk’ in AS I:3 137: ‘Chase that Java and canned cow over here, Stub.’ Asking for coffee and condensed milk. | |
| ‘Linguistic Concoctions of the Soda Jerker’ in AS XI:1 44: no cow. Cup of coffee without cream. | |
| Thieves’ Market 172: She passed behind him to get a small can of milk from the icebox. ‘Small cow,’ she said as she placed it on the table. | |
| Narrows 115: ‘Cow, sir?’ ‘He means milk.’. | |
| Restless Waterfront 245: The coffee arrived, and Jack took up the jug to pour. ‘How do you like it, plenty of cow or no cow?’. |
7. (Aus.) a horse.
| [ | | Athenaeum 10 Sept. n.p.: ‘Liverpool.’ All over Lancashire a horse is called a cow] [F&H]. |
| Truth (Sydney) 23 Dec. 1/2: I was astride of an old ‘cow’ bearing a distant relationship and being styled (as a compliment to Nature’s freakishness in its production) a horse. | |
| ‘Grafter and Goose’ in Bulletin (Sydney) 11 Aug. n.p.: ‘He’s a bad-tempered little cow, anyway. He belongs to Ken Chambers’. | |
| Miss Pym Disposes (1954) 50: ‘I’m two pounds down on a cow called Bright Promise. That’s what comes of putting your faith in horseflesh’. |
8. (US Und.) a female beggar.
| N.Y. Times 27 Jan. Sun. Mag. 4: If the ‘cow’ has an emaciated face and pathetic eyes she plays at being a young widow, penniless and tearful, or a nun, with all the robes and trimmings, even to the knotted girdle and rosary, soliciting alms from house to house. |
9. (US short-order) butter.
| Day Book (Chicago) 8 Sept. 17/1: ‘A plate of [...] bread and butter’ [...] ‘dough well done with cow to cover. | |
| Carson City Dly Appeal (MV) 26 May 2/3: ‘Bread and butter’ [...] ‘Dough well done with cow to cover’. |
10. a joc. term of address.
| Kia Ora Coo-ee 15 Mar. 4/3: Listened the other day to a Tommy’s description of an Anzac: ‘He’s a brown, lanky bloke ’oo calls ’is cobber ’er cow.’. |
11. (US) beef.
| Slave Stories 122: The Patron would dole out some ‘cow in dem tin box’ [...] it’s some of the Chicago beef I took over. | |
| Honolulu Star-Bulletin (HI) 25 Mar. 33/1: ‘Nigger steak’ is not a meal for cannibals but simply [...] liver [...] a somewhat inadequate substitute for the real Mckoy, or, ‘a slice of cow’. | |
| , | | DAS. |
12. a tramp’s or criminal’s female companion.
| Man’s Grim Justice 138: The cracksman who had a steady ‘cow’ should be sidetracked. |
13. (US gay) an effeminate male homosexual.
| (ref. to early 1950s) Queens’ Vernacular 73: stereotype effeminate homosexual [...] cow (dated since early ’50s). |
14. (UK prison) £1; thus cow and calf, £1 10s.
| Lag’s Lexicon 53: A ‘cow’ is one pound sterling. ‘Cow and calf’ is, therefore, thirty shillings. |
15. any animal.
| Holy Smoke 25: Even if you was running eighty or ninety thousand head, it ’d still be those poor cows [sheep] out in the scrub without water and that you’d be doing your nut about, wouldn’t it? |
16. (orig. Scots teen) a promiscuous young woman.
| (con. mid-1960s) Glasgow Gang Observed 106: Of the three ‘cows’ associated with Tim’s gang, I met only one [...] To the Young Team she was ‘a pure pump, a pure bun, a fuckin’ cow’. | |
| Lingo 104: Disapproving terms for females included butch, slut, tramp, mole, and cow, all used in the wider Lingo. | |
| Decent Ride 389: That Donna Lawson [...] That’s a total pump, a fuckin cow ay the highest order. |
17. (UK black) a double-sized audio speaker box, as used by sound systems.
| (con. 1979–80) Brixton Rock (2004) 83: Other people commented cruelly that her nostrils were as big as two holes in a cow – a massive double-speaker box. |
In compounds
see separate entry.
(US) foolishly obsessed with a woman or with women in general.
| Man’s Grim Justice 139: I began to tell him about the swell-looking chick [...] ‘Don’t get cow-crazy,’ he admonished me. |
(US) foolishly obsessed with a woman or with women in general; in a homosexual context, heterosexual.
| Man’s Grim Justice 138: We young fellows began to cultivate the ladies. The old-timers [...] said we were ‘cow-simple.’. | |
| et al. DAUL 51/1: Cow-simple. Adolescently girl-crazy. | |
| , | | (ref. to 1935) DAS 126/1: cow-simple adj. Girl-crazy; in love with a girl. |
| Queens’ Vernacular 190: heterosexual [...] cow-simple (= sexually allured by women). |
see separate entry.
In phrases
1. (UK) a pump.
| Morn. Post (London) 19 Sept. 7/4: Witness— After he had received the strained milk, he filled his pail up with water from the black cow (pump) [...] After he had milked the ‘black cow’ he put his yokes on his shoulders. | |
| Sam Sly 9 Dec. 2/2: Sam Sly’s ‘Advice Gratis’ [...] He advises Mr. E—y [...] to be more careful when he waters his milk next time. The neighbours can see all his doings with the ‘black cow’ . |
2. (US teen/campus) chocolate milk shake.
| ‘An Aggie Vocab. of Sl.’ in AS XXI:1 31: black cow, n. Chocolate milk. | |
| , | | DAS. |
| in Lex. of Phila. Metropolitan Area. |
3. root beer (and milk).
| Soda Fountain July 28/1: ‘Black cow’ — a root beer with milk in it. | |
| ‘Linguistic Concoctions of the Soda Jerker’ in AS XI:1 42: black cow. Root beer. | |
| Dict. Popular Sl. |
to work as a prostitute.
| Spike Island (1981) 135: He’ll say to her, ‘I know you’re cowin’ it. I’m going to set up customers for yer. I’ll mind yer.’. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
1. (Aus./N.Z./US) a dairy farmer or any employee of a dairy farm; thus cowbang v., to run a dairy farm.
| Truth (Brisbane) 15 Sept. 1/7: For quite a long while ‘Critic’ has kept his readers abreast of the race for the production of a dual purpose animal, in which the cockies of Horstralia have been running neck and crop with farmers of Noo Zee, and the cow-bangers of ’Murka. | |
| Queenslander (Brisbane) 5 June 3/2: It annoys one used to speaking of a stockman or a jackeroo or a rouseabout, to see the very person described as a ‘cow-banger’. | |
| ‘West Goes South’ in Everybody’s Oct. 🌐 One enraged cow-banger coyly remarks that, if we don’t do some speedy explaining, he’ll come down and give us a reproduction of ‘Custer’s last stand’. | |
| ‘Billy the Kidder’ in Blue Ribbon Western Nov. 🌐 The town had been founded by a bunch of cattleconkers. | |
| ‘Australian Cattle Lingo’ in AS XXXIII:3 165: cowbanger, cowboy, n. A dairy hand. | |
| Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 31/1: cowbang to run a dairy farm [...] cowbanger dairy farmer. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988]. |
2. (Aus.) a bullock-driver.
| Aus. Lang. 67: Here are a few of the names by which he [i.e. the bullock driver] and his kind are known: [...] cow conductor, cow spanker, cow banger. |
see separate entries.
see cow pie
(US short-order) milk or a milk container.
| Coconino Sun (Flagstaff, AZ) 26 Dec. 2/3: Railroad Eating House Lingo [...] ‘Cut the cowcar off the java train,’ continued the boomer, [...] ‘and switch me a couple of life preservers’. |
1. a full moustache.
| High Times 212: In tight britches, an’ a biled shirt, a totin a cow catcher, or a caterpillar mustach. |
2. a large bosom.
| State of the Union Act II: The Head Incorruptible is the fat dame with the big cowcatcher. | |
| (con. c.1952) Gresham’s War 136: She was short with [...] a preposterous bosom. She was called CC, which I learned meant cow-catcher [HDAS]. | |
| [ | | ‘Jam!’ at Canoe.ca 🌐 Mrs. Shepherd, (was) a trustworthy old woman with a frog’s down-turned mouth and a bosom like the cowcatcher on a freight train]. |
3. a prominent nose.
| From Here to Eternity (1998) 651: You cant get away from the Bloom nose [...] your cowcatcher which precedes you. |
(Aus./N.Z.) a dairy farmer or any employee of a dairy farm; thus cow cockying/cow cockyism n.
| Bulletin (Sydney) 12 Jul. 16/2: The cow-cocky is the most awful and wonderful of the genus – especially the young rooster. [...] Used to cows all his wretched lifetime, he actually becomes cow-like. | |
| ‘A Reconnoitre with Benno’ in Roderick (1972) 836: The comfortable homes of Cow Cockyism, with every modern convenience. | |
| Truth (Wellington) 3 June 5/7: This old cow-cockie Marx. | |
| N.Z. Truth 29 Dec. 4/5: He is as popular in Stratford as warm rain is to the cow cockies. | |
| Horsham Times (Vic.) 28 Aug. 8/6: [headline] A Cow Cockie’s Luck. | |
| ‘Cow-pats’ in A Man And His Wife (1944) 22: My father was a cow-cocky, but he couldn’t make cow-cockying pay. | |
| Till Human Voices Wake Us 66: I am so tied to my farm, writes one cow-cocky in the paper [etc]. | |
| These New Zealanders 148: While hitch-hiking, I met a true cross-section [...] cow-cockies, sheep-drovers, Government officials. | |
| Hang On a Minute, Mate (1963) 62: A shanty he’d made out of timber and drums that had been washed up on the beach or swiped and bludged from the cow-cockies a few miles inland. | |
| Folklore of the Aus. Pub 61: I was checking one that an old cow-cocky had completed. | |
| Black Billy Tea 74: There is a good cheque you can earn, [...] cutting some cow-cocky’s scrub. | |
| Dad and Dave [screenplay] ix: ‘Rustics’, ‘bushies,’ ‘cow-cockies’ or ‘rubes’ are portrayed as slow-thinking, small-minded, inbred, intolerant. | |
| ‘Fog’ in Turning (2005) 242: She was a pretty kid, probably the daughter of a proud cow-cocky. |
(US) an agricultural college; occas. attrib.
| [ | | Reports from Committees (House of Commons) 247: What college is it; is it a cow college? — The cattle is out in the farmyard]. |
| S.F. Municipal Reports 620: I found, however, that the Agricullural Department really did exist, and that it was spoken of by the students generally as the ‘Cow College’. | |
| Annual Report (Michigan Horticultural Soc.) 26 96: ‘I think you will find him over at the “cow college”;’ and before I got to that department, as many as three persons, in speaking, referred to it as the ‘cow college’. | |
| Annual Report (Agriculture of Maine)222: It is a custom to speak of the farmer as a hayseed, and it has been the custom to talk of the farmers' college as the cow college. The farmer does not like his name, and the college does not like its name. | |
| Moon-Face and Other Stories 120: Ere they took their sheepskins they could have stumped any chemistry or ‘cow college’ professor in the institution. | |
| ‘A Word-List From Minnesota’ in DN IV i 10: cow college, n. Agricultural School. [...] ‘He is at the cow college’. | |
| ‘College Sl.’ in AS III:2 132: Agricultural courses are labeled ‘cow college’ courses. | |
| 14 Mar. [synd. col.] Nugent [and] Thurber were fraternity brothers at Ohio State University when it was not much more than a cow college. | |
| N.Y. Post 19 Feb. 40: Not ‘cow colleges,’ but famous institutions [W&F]. | |
| No Red Ribbons (1968) 12: You’re yellow, Cow College. | |
| in Current Sl. IV:3–4 (1970) 16: Cow college, U.S.A., n. New Mexico State University. | |
| Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In 130: She starts in about her ‘years’ at Tarleton State cow college in Stephenville. | |
| (con. 1920s) Livin’ the Blues 73: Rival schools sneeringly termed it a ‘cow college’. | |
| Auburn University News 6 Sept. 🌐 So, that quart of milk you pick up at the grocery store today may have originated in the dairy at the ‘cow college’ of Auburn University. | |
| CSU College of Engineering 🌐 In 1959–65, CSU was a cow college becoming a truly fine University. | |
| Salon.com 5 Aug. 🌐 Armey had previously been an economics professor at several cow colleges in Texas. |
(Aus.) a bullock-driver.
| Bulletin (Sydney) 10 Aug. 16/2: [H]e has omitted a name which the angry bullock-driver calls himself when he wants to heap contempt instead of curses on lazy, troublesome bullocks – ‘cow-conductor’. Of course, a bullock-pilot has to be outrageously made to use such awful language. | |
| Aus. Lang. 67: Here are a few of the names by which he [i.e. the bullock driver] and his kind are known: [...] cow conductor, cow spanker, cow banger. |
nonsense, rubbish.
| Honey Flow in DSUE (1984). | |
| DSUE (8th edn) 260/2: since ca. 1930. | |
| at www.unknownnews.net 24 Feb. 🌐 So full of campaign cow-confetti are voters [...] that they somehow see a political ad on a loftier plane than, say, a shampoo commercial. |
having a large vagina.
| Sl. and Its Analogues 195/1: Cow-(also Bushel- and Sluice-)Cunted, adj. phr. (venery), — A term of opprobrium applied to women deformed by parturition or debauchery. | |
| in Letter from My Father (1978) 388: When I finally shoved my cock into that cow-cunted bitch, I shot one hell of a wad. | |
| Mile High 148: This cow-cunted young whore who couldn’t speak a word of English. | |
| Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 184: The depucellated virgin […] becomes worthy of the denominations cow-cunted, bushel-cunted, sluice-cunted, double-cunted. |
cow dung.
| Cockney Adventures 27 Jan. 100: She stepped plump into what little boys, with humorous metaphor, call a cow-daisy. | |
| Worcs. Chron. 24 May 4/4: The only damage done, if we except the deposit of the cow-daisy [...] was the breaking of a garden engine. |
(US tramp) cow excrement, used fig. of something unpleasant.
| Somebody in Boots 154: Do a man have to wait all mornin’ in line to git a tin plate o’ cow-donick? I kin get garbage out o’any old can. [Ibid.] 155: ‘Cow-donick’ the man in the fog had called this meat. |
(US black) shoe leather.
| ‘Jiver’s Bible’ in Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive. |
a general term of abuse, aimed at a woman, thus adj. cow-faced.
| [ | | Exeter & Plymouth Gaz. 12 Apr. 2/2: Absurd stories of the cow-face boy, the cowpox mange]. |
| Hants. Advertiser 2 Oct. 6/6: The cow-faced women of the place are seen hurrying away. | |
| Dundee Courier I jan. 7/4: ‘Perhaps you think I’d marry you, Mistress Cowface?’ [...] ‘Cowface to yourself, you bull-headed elephant!’. | |
| Leeds Times 24 Feb. 7/8: If someone reminds her of Madame X, she will hesitate a moment and then say: ‘Ah, yes! the lady with the cow-face’. | |
| Arthur’s 307: He said to Mr. Tuttle’s friend: ‘Cow-face – ’op it!’. | |
| Stag Line 70: Oh, I didn’t mean you, cowface. | |
| ‘Meat Bawl’ in Popular Detective Aug. 🌐 Git your hat and coat, cowface, an’ be out on the cement. |
(N.Z.) cow manure, when fresh.
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. |
butter, sometimes rated impure or second-rate.
| Republican Farmer (Wilkes-Barre, PA) 28 July 1/4: [He got tu dickerin’ some butter with me for some groceries and other notions. His cow’s grease were dreadful nice. | |
| Letters by an Odd Boy 162: A snuff-box maybe a ‘sneezing-trap; ‘a spoon, ‘a feeder;’ ‘cow’s-grease,’ butter; ‘a fantail,’ a dustman’s hat. | |
| Pitsburgh Post (PA) 4 Apr. 1/7: A Western paper says that dealers in butter classify it as wool-grease, cart-grease, soap-grease, variegated, tesselated, cow-grease, boarding house breakfast [...] good roll, and gilt-edge roll. | |
| Inter-Ocean (Chicago) 17 Jan. 4/4: The people of St Louis have just found out that thjey are buttering their bread with oleomargarine instead of genuine ‘cow grease’. | |
| Algona Upper Des Moines (Algona, IO) 27 May 8/1: The ‘cow grease’ (it would be a misnomer to call it butter). | |
| Elwood Dly Record (IN) 1 Oct. 1/5: The milk will have to be converted into butter or lose it. This will relieve conditions in the butter line and ‘cow grease’ will be more plentiful. | |
| Adams Co. Free Press (Corning, IO) 15 Mar. 9/1: Such a law would divide the ‘cow grease’ from the real butter. | |
| [ | | Townsville Daily Bulletin 6 Nov. 11/2: Some of us knew butter as a kind of cow’s grease]. |
| Hash House Lingo 7: Cow paste for butter. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| Western Words (2nd edn) 80/1: Cow grease A cowboy’s name for butter. |
(US) a revolver.
| Neon Wilderness (1986) 124: A sallow-faced shrimp with spectacles [...] waving an oversized cow-gun. |
(W.I.) a tin lamp.
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | cited in Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980). |
clumsy, awkward.
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
cowardly.
| ‘The She Citizens Delight’ Rump Poems and Songs (1662) II 66: You Cow-hearted Citizens / What is your damn’ pretence. | |
| Eng. Rogue III 57: My Husband succeeded so well in his attempts, by meeting with none but Cow-hearted fellows. | |
| Pagan Prince 123: For not withstanding his Bulk, he was but Cow-hearted. | |
| (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) II Bk V 554: A base cow-hearted son of ten fathers. | |
| Examen 258: Lady Powis [...] called him a Cow-hearted Fellow. | |
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Hermit in America on Visit to Phila. 2nd series 30: He was declared to be a cow-hearted flincher who would rather provide for his bread-basket, than risk his noddle in a row! | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
see cow v.1
(N.Z./US) a cow hand, a milker.
| Some Ups and Downs in N.Z. and Aus. 12: Aggie [from the dairy] is a champion cow jerker, can do seven an hour [...] she has a goo-goo eye and a blameless past [DNZE]. | |
![[Can]](/static/img/flags/can.png "Canada") | Ploughman of the Moon 166: ‘Cow-Juice Jerker’ [Ch. title]. | |
| Dreaming 33: I’ve been a turnipweeder, cow-juice jerker, and I’ve even sold gold-painted pisspots. |
(US) a farmer, a rustic; a dealer in cattle.
| Dialect of Craven I 89: Cow-Jockey. A beast dealer. | |
| Pittsburgh Gaz. 29 Apr. 4/2: A ‘cow jockey’ [...] desired to make an information against an unknown sharper for passing counterfeit money. | |
| Holt Co. Sentinel (MO) 31 Oct. 1/5: We have no war to make on [...] cow jockey Anderson. | |
| Ft Wayne Dly Gaz. IN) 27 July 4/4: A correspondent [...] uses such expressions as ‘Sentational selling,’ ‘Cow lockeys,’ ‘Men of elastic conscences,’ [...] Vicious breeding, ’ ‘Public damage and injury’. | |
| Clinch Valley News (Tazewell, VA) 22 Mar. 1/7: Harman, the great cow jockey, traded three cows for one. | |
| Pottstown Mercury (PA) 29 Mar. 1/4: You won’t get the money for the cows. It will go to the cow jockey. | |
| Republic (Columbia, IN) 24 Feb. 6/6: A cow jockey has a lot more tricks than the old horse trader had. | |
| letter 26 May in Joint (1972) 137: The population of the 2-T wing is a heterogeneous collection of tractor drivers, cow jockeys, hog valets and chicken pluckers. | |
| in DARE. | |
| Albuquerque Jrnl (NM) 28 July 65/3: Campbell, who once sold cattle for a living, respectfully disagrees, because ‘I used to be a cow jockey’. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 53: cow-jockey The new kid in the cowshed who cops the chores around the farm. |
milk; thus cow-juicery, a dairy, cow-juice sipper, a child.
| Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn). | |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| A Quarter to Nine Act I: (sees the tea equipage.) What is that I behold? [...] what your brother Jonathan calls ‘your catlap and cow-juice’. | |
| Spirit of the Times (N.Y.) 6 June 170/2: And wasn’t the cow juice (milk) in requisition! [DA]. | |
| Vocabulum. | |
| Intelligencer (Anderson, SC) 12 Feb. 4/2: If she takes tea let him take tea; if she drinks milk let him pour down the cow juice. | |
| Wkly Kansas Chief (Troy, KS) 21 Mar. 3/2: J.P. Wilson, the milkman, while on his rounds distributing cow juice [...] slipped on a frosty sidewalk. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 9 Aug. 15/1: There may be more nourishment in cow-juice than in cigars, but there is more fun in cow-juice. | |
| Sporting Times 18 Jan. 1: Now Mrs. Pitcher has instructions to get the cow juice at some other dairy, for Ananias would rather put up with ‘Swiss’ than sarcasm. | |
| Aus. Sl. Dict. 20: Cow’s Juice, milk. | |
| Ft Wayne News (IN) 2 Feb. 7/1: Bowery Eating House Lingo [...] A glass of milk would bring forth an order for cow juice ‘wid an overcoat’. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 27 July 14/4: Dropped on a humorous milk-vendor, the other day. Had reason to doubt the respectability of the morning cowjuice. | |
| Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 19 Oct. 8/6: ‘I got summoned for adultery yester day,’ said the wall-eyed milkman [...] ‘They reckoned I put water in my milk before I sold it,’ roared out the cow juice man. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 18 June 1/1: The cow-fluid merchant broke up the company with his flogger and plug hat. | |
| N.Y. World 12 July in Unforgettable Season (1981) 122: ‘Croton cocktails and cow juice is my limit.’. | |
| Truth (Sydney) 2 July 1/3: The floods in Melbourne have proved the salvation of the cowjuiceries, for dairymen now aver that the water got into the milk. Ooray, for the milkies! | |
| Rhymes of a Rolling Stone 104: ‘The Cow-Juice Cure’ [title]. | |
| Mint (1955) 71: Every [bin] brimmed with gallons of sour milk. This wasted cow-juice soured us too. | |
| Murphy (1963) 60: They have been too generous with the cowjuice. | |
| Public School Slang 65: Milk is sometimes cow-juice, but at Westminster (c. 1900) was bag, doubtless from the cow’s udder. | |
| N.Y. Amsterdam News 23 Oct. 21: We will never have any cow juice sippers and if we do, they’ll be our great grand ones. | |
| in Baltimore Sun (MD) 16 Jan. A2/2: Cowjuice Rhumba — a milk shake. | |
| Harder They Fall (1971) 13: Just the juice of the cow [...] Gotta keep my ulcer quiet. | |
| Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 185: Milk is commonly ‘cow juice’. | |
| Any Old Dollars, Mister? 86: Y’ got sim fine cow juice in this country. | |
| Hazell Plays Solomon (1976) 61: Quarter a pound of Reggie’s best smoked cheese washed down by an excellent bottle of Chateau Cowjuice. | |
| (con. 1949) Big Blowdown (1999) 142: Hurry up with that cow juice. | |
| in Guardian G2 10 Mar. 15/1: These [i.e. rice crispies] are unmoistened by cow juice. |
(US) a quack, a poor doctor.
| McTeague (1958) 169: Ah, one-horse dentist [...] Ah, zinc-plugger, cow-killer, I’d like to show you once, you overgrown mucker, you – you – cow-killer! |
see cow pie
In phrases
(Aus.) thick-ankled.
| Aus. Sl. Dict. 20: Cow-hocked, large about the ankle. |
In compounds
(W.I.) newly distilled white proof rum.
| cited in Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980). |
milk.
| Michael Cassidy 47: ‘The cook had run short of milk [...] Devil a drop of the cow oil was there’. |
see cow grease
(US prison) an exercise area for female prisoners.
| (con. 1950-1960) Dict. Inmate Sl. (Walla Walla, WA) 20: Bull-pen – an enclosed area where male prisoners are allowed to exercise and fraternize; cow-pen for women inmates. |
(Aus.) a cowboy; a herdsman.
| Bulletin (Sydney) 2 July 15/2: He presently arrived at the house a very wrathful cow-persuader, demanding what sort of a garnished joke they thought it was trying to pot him, and for two gory decorated pins he’d shift the ears of the whole flaring lot. [Ibid.] 22 Oct. 14/3: During the drought, an oxen-persuader named Jackson, seeing no prospect of making a living out of bullock-punching, turned his team into the pear to live or die, and went elsewhere to look for toil. |
(N.Z./US) a piece of cow dung.
| Brave Cowboy (1958) 65: They’ll be feedin’ us toasted cow pies next. | |
| ‘Man of Letters’ Steptoe and Son [TV script] He’s as coarse as cowcakes. | |
| Sneaky People (1980) 163: Ralph walked through a cowpie. | |
| Coyote Ugly 6: Waltzing like the Queen of goddamn Sheba past your mama like she’s a cowpie. | |
| Under A Hoodoo Moon 1: Smelling rawhide and cow pies. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 54: cow’s kipper/pie Cow pat. |
1. (US) a cowboy.
| cited in Amer. Dial. Dict. (1944). | |
| Wichita Dly Eagle (KS) 3 Sept. 5/3: Before he took up detective work [he] was a ‘cowpoke’ on Colorado ranges. | |
| Lariat Mag. Jan. n.p.: I camped there once, and a cowpoke told me why they were named that [DA]. | |
| in Erotic Muse (1992) 190: Just because I worked for him wasn’t no sign / That a cowpoke’s boss had got to pay his fine. | |
| ‘Raw, Medium, and Well Done’ in Blue Ribbon Western June 🌐 Two of the cowpokes drop four-bits each on the table. | |
| Mad mag. Oct.–Nov. 27: The rootinest, tootinest, straightest shootinest cowpoke ever to ride the Pecos trail. | |
| (con. 1940s) Dark Sea Running 212: He was a large beefy man. He had been a fine cowpoke. | |
| ‘Charlotte the Harlot’ in Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing (1995) xviii: Way down on the prairie where cow plop is thick, / Where women are women and cowpokes cum quick. | |
| (con. 1916) Tin Lizzie Troop (1978) 196: Wouldn’t his bastardistas be better shots than a collegiate glee club and an aeroplane cowpoke incapable of plinking a church bell once in six tries? | |
| An Imaginary Menagerie 81: Cowpokes / from the panhandles / blow out / the candles. | |
| Native Tongue 109: It brought three Company Cowpokes out of the bronco chute at a dead run. | |
| I, Fatty 203: You hear about them cowpokes up in Wyoming? |
2. in attrib. use of sense 1.
| ‘Phoney Shakedown’ Dan Turner - Hollywood Detective Feb. 🌐 He’d once galloped all over the landscape in cowpoke roles when men were men and movies were silent. | |
| Long Good-Bye 92: ‘When the cowpoke brought him home? Your husband didn’t mention any names at all – even place names?’ [...] Some cowpoke movies have been made about them. |
1. (Aus.) a dairyman.
| Bulletin (Sydney) 10 Aug. 16/2: How the country cow-prodder clings to his filth. |
2. (US) a cowboy.
| Wash. Times (DC) 9 Feb. 13/4: Jess Willard, former cow-prodder and now world’s champion heavyweight. | |
| Brownsville Herald (TX) 31 Aug. 9/8: Waters’ language [...] proved that he must have been a cowboy or must have played around with the cow-prodders. | |
| Eve. News (Harrisburg, PA) 22 Aug. 15/3: He is the big, blonde, former cow-prodder from Montana. | |
| Cowboy Lingo 22: The cowboy was known, too, by such slang names as [...] ‘cow-prod’. |
see separate entry.
(US) butter.
| ‘C.C.C. Chatter’ in AS XV:2 Apr. 211/2: Common articles of food lose some of their sameness when given figurative names: [...] butter, cow salve. | |
| Western Words (2nd edn) 81/1: Cow salve A cowboy’s name for butter. |
1. a calf.
2. an awkward, loutish person.
| Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. |
(Can./US) a large straw hat.
| L.A. Herald 4 Sept. 9/6: The old clothes, shoes, ‘cow’s breakfasts’, and the [...] new flannel suit. | |
| Hutchinson News (KS) 16 June 7/2: A cow’s breakfast, as they call the wide straw farmers’ hats in New Brunswick. | |
| Cornhill Mag. June 777: Nothing looks more out of place than a pallid face under a policeman's "cow's breakfast" (as the slouch hat was sometimes styled). | |
| Bulletin (US Dept. Agriculture) 101: The farmer [...] in coarse homespun clothes [...] and a ‘cow’s breakfast’ on his head. | |
| Winnipeg Trib. (Manitoba) 8 June 17/2: A bright blue smoke [...] bloomers, riding boots and a ‘cow breakfast’ hat. | |
| St Louis Post-Despatch (MO) 16 Jan. 25/2: When it comes to brains, you’r about four pounds lighter than a cow’s breakfast (straw hat). | |
| Oakland Trib. (CA) 30 Apr. 3/2: An unprecedented stock of straws, panamas, and other varieties of cow breakfast hats. | |
| Weekend Mag. (Montreal) 1 Aug. 28/3: [H]e returned through the streets [...] quite oblivious of the very un-naval ‘cow's breakfast’ [straw hat] still on his head. |
diarrhoea.
| Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Cow’s Courant. Gallop & Sh—e. | |
| , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn). |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
butter.
| Vulgar Tongue. | |
| , , | | Sl. Dict. |
| Sl. Dict. (1890). | |
| Aus. Sl. Dict. 20: Cow’s Grease, butter. |
(Aus.) a drover; thus used fig. to describe anyone who motivates or drives another; thus cow-shaking adj.
| Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Mar. 13/3: N.S.W. Lands Minister Tom Hassall, [t]he leading cow-shaker, cannot drop the slang of his old droving days. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 24 Aug. 25/2: The Australian ‘patriot,’ or Cow-Shaking politician, who can strike his breast with Imperial fervor, [...] should be promptly shanghaied to the Cape and hurried to the scene of the hottest fighting. |
see separate entry.
see separate entries.
see separate entry.
1. (Aus./N.Z.) a dairy farmer or any employee of a dairy farm; thus cow-spanking n. and attrib., dairy-farming; v. cow-spank, to run a dairy farm, to milk cows.
| Auckland Weekly News 8 Oct. 8: He entered on the profession of a ‘cow spanker’, as they call it here [DNZE]. | |
| N.Z. Observer (Auckland) I Nov. 4: This [i.e. a circus] just makes Mr Cowspanker real hilarious [DNZE]. | |
| Wells Jrnl 13 Aug. 8/4: ‘What the deuce is a cowspanker,’ though I. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 12 Oct. 14/4: Mrs. Brown wasn’t going to buy any more microbes from her milkman, so she sent Brown to a cow-spanking friend on the South Coast to purchase a milker. | |
| N.Z. Observer 5 Sept. 20: [headline] The Cow-Spanker Spanked. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 26 Dec. 13/4: The mingling with the ‘cow squeezers’ on their fathers’ farms had given them an intimate knowledge of certain subjects not included on the curriculum. But, apart from this, they were cow-stupid – talked cow, smelt cow, lived cow. | |
| Smith’s Weekly (Sydney) 5 Apr. 9/6: The young cow-spankers of Albion park can now devote all Sunday spare time to the Australian national sport of two-up [AND]. | |
| Truth (Wellington) 27 Aug. 5: Cameron had [...] sold his place and gone out of the cow-spanking industry. | |
| Southern Reporter (Selkirk.) 19 June 5/6: In Palmerston north I obtained a cow-spaning job with a farmer near Hawera. | |
| N.Z. Dairy Produce Exporter 18 Dec. 35: From the worried gentlemen in Tooley Street to the humblest cow-spanker, we all look to the cow [DNZE]. | |
| (ref. to 1890–1910) Early Canterbury Runs (1951) 371: Cowspanker – Station slang for cowboy; [...] to people in town it connotes a dairy farmer and that to cowspank is to run a dairy farm. | |
| N.Z. 117: New Zealanders have coined or adapted many expressions to meet local requirements, as illustrated by the following: [...] cowspank: to milk cows; cowspanker: dairy farmer. | |
| Excuse my Feet 7: ‘Cow spanker,’ said Herbert proudly [DNZE]. | |
| Green Kiwi 23: Cow-spanking isn’t a life at all. No, you wouldn’t catch me working for any lousy cocky. | |
| Encyc. N.Z. II. 680: Dairy farmers are (or were) cowspankers. | |
| Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 31/1: cowbang to run a dairy farm. Also cowspank [...] cowspanker dairy farmer. | |
| in Oxford Dict. Sl. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988]. |
2. (Aus.) a bullock-driver.
| Aus. Lang. 67: Here are a few of the names by which he [i.e. the bullock driver] and his kind are known: [...] cow conductor, cow spanker, cow banger. |
a bull.
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | |
| Andrew Jackson 120: The Bullites, every one with a cag-mag, a piece of cow's spouse, or an Essex lion in his wallet. |
see separate entry.
a cheap cigar.
| ‘Western Eclogue’ in Gent.’s Mag. 287: We nothing smoaks but oak leaves and cue-terd. | |
| [ | | Sharky’s Machine 131: The cigar, do ya mind? It smells like a fuckin’ cowturd burnin’]. |
(US) a cowboy, esp. a temporary cowhand.
| Fifty Years on the Old Frontier 19: Trouble would come to the ‘cow waddie’ who had caused it. | |
| Pittsburgh Press (PA) 12 Dec. 18/5: Melody Jones, far from being a rootin’-tootin’, guitar-titin’, drug-store cowboy is a genuine ordinary cow-waddie. | |
| ‘Raw, Medium, and Well Done’ in Blue Ribbon Western June 🌐 Some cow waddie suggests ‘Who Scalped Osceola In the Moonlight?’. |
(US) milk.
| On Broadway 9 Jan. [synd. col.] Tallullah Bankhead, drinkling cow water of New Year’s Eve! |
see under cowyard n.
(Aus.) of an amorous couple, to search out a secluded spot in a bush in order to have sexual intercourse.
| They’re a Weird Mob (1958) 46: ‘Gunna be a bastard tryin’ to find a dry spot.’ ‘Hunt up a cow.’ . | |
| Summer Glare 80: We delighted in following couples at night when they went ‘chasing up a cow’, as courting was commonly called, for couples mostly began their night’s love-making by wandering around looking for a sleeping cow that they could disturb to claim the warm patch of earth where it lay. | |
| Goodbye Girlie 161: ‘He’s gone to move a cow’ was a common joke, intimating that the area a cow had been lying on was at least warm and dry for the lovers. |
(US) a portion of butter.
| Star (Marion, OH) 19 Sept. 6/5: For years restaurant counter men and waiters have used their own language in relaying orders to busy chefs. [...] Among the favorites and best known are: [...] ‘cow to cover,’ butter. |
a water pump.
| Punch n.p.: The Rinderpest does not affect the cow with the iron tail [F&H]. | |
| Sportsman 4 Feb. 2/1: Notes on News [...] What shall we call the compound styled London milk and London water when we rise against them [...] The produce of the‘cow with the iron tail’ is stock grievance. | |
| Sportsman (London) ‘Notes on News’ 25 Mar. 4/1: The ‘cow with the iron tail’ was introduced into Parliament [...] by Lord Eustace Cecily who [...] seemed to believe that it was a case of give an iron-tailed cow a bad name and hang her. He thought it was unfair to speak of her as contributing to the adulteration of milk; she only ‘lowered or impoverished it’. | |
| Sportsman (London) ‘Notes on News’ 8 Nov. 4/1: Five [samples of milk] were ‘deteriorated by the cream having been abstracted’ without any subsequent aid from the ‘cow with the iron tail’. | |
| (ref. to mid-19C) Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 95/2: Cow with the iron tail (Peoples’). Pump. A way of attacking milkmen who until about 1865 sold extensively watered milk. |
(US) to lose emotional control, to have a fit.
| Denton Record-Chron. (TX) 26 Mar. 3/2: He won’t let me watch rock ’n roll shows [...] He’d have a cow if he knew I watched 77 Sunset Strip. | |
| Coshocton (OH) Trib. 15 Mar. 4/4–5: Sometimes our parents have a cow about our slang, but heck, life would be flaky without it. Don’t you think? | |
| Current Sl. I:3 4/2: Have a hairy cow, v. To have a laughing fit. | |
| Great Santini (1977) 429: You know he must have had a cow when he got that note. | |
| Campus Sl. Sept. | |
| Way Past Cool 50: ‘Rub some dirt over them shoes. Soon’s you can.’ ‘Oh, shit, Lyon! My mom have a total cow.’. | |
| Fortress of Solitude 457: A fellow up in the SHU fooled an officer into opening his door, made a run for it [...] Talbot’s having a cow. |
(US) a euph. for I’ll be damned! Often ext. as cow-kicked by a jackass or cow-kicked by a mule.
| Wheeling Dly Intelligencer (VA) 22 Apr. 3/4: I’ll be cow-kicked Jedge if I kin remember a durn thing. | |
| Record-Union (Sacramento, CA) 18 May 8: Wall, I’ll be cow-kicked ef that wasn’t a good scheme. | |
| Minneapolis Jrnl (MN) 6 Aug. 4/5: I’ll be cow-kicked if wheat ain’t going to stay about 80 or 90 the year through. | |
| Liberal Democrat (KS) 11 Feb. 4/1: The old ejaculation, ‘Well, I’ll be cow-kicked’ don’t go out here in Stevens county. | |
| Disinherited 278: I’ll be cow-kicked if I waller in this mess another hour! | |
| ‘Teaching little brother manners’ Herald Journal 15 Apr. 🌐 I tried it and lo and behold (or ‘I’ll be cow kicked’ as a friend used to say), it worked. |
see cow juice
(US black) to walk, esp. to walk so much that one’s shoes are worn out.
| Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 102: Well, stud hoss, he laid down some cow like he was tipping on down to Chinatown. |
(W.I.) very angrily, highly enraged.
| Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage. | |
| MySpace 4 June 🌐 He watch she like when cow buss rope. |
to make a mess of.
| Cardiff City Online 16 Mar. 🌐 I have never had a day like this as a manager or coach. We made a cow’s backside of it in every sense. |
(US short order) a corned (UK salt) beef sandwich.
| Ft Wayne News (IN) 2 Feb. 7/1: Bowery Eating House Lingo [...] Corned beef sandwich ‘stare that cow in the face’’. |
a phr. meaning mind your own business, usu. in response to someone interfering.
| ‘Johns Hopkins Jargon’ in AS VII:5 337: who’s milking this cow? — ‘Who’s doing this? Mind your own business.’. | |
| Drum. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. |