cow
pronunciation
How to pronounce cow in British English:
UK [kaʊ]
How to pronounce cow in American English:
US [kaʊ]
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- Noun:
- female of domestic cattle: "`moo-cow' is a child's term"
- mature female of mammals of which the male is called `bull'
- a large unpleasant woman
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- Verb:
- subdue, restrain, or overcome by affecting with a feeling of awe; frighten (as with threats)
Word Origin
- cow
- cow: English has two completely distinct words cow. The commoner, ‘female of cattle’ [OE], is a word of very ancient ancestry. It goes back via West and North Germanic *kōuz to a hypothetical Indo-European *gwōus, which was also the source of Latin bōs (from which English gets bovine, beef, and bugle, not to mention Bovril). In modern English its plural is cows, but Old English cū had an anomalous plural, cy, which in the remodelled form kine survived dialectally into the 20th century. The other cow, ‘intimidate, daunt’ [17], probably comes from Old Norse kúga ‘oppress’.=> beef, bovine, bugle
- cow (n.)
- Old English cu "cow," from Proto-Germanic *kwon (cognates: Old Frisian ku, Middle Dutch coe, Dutch koe, Old High German kuo, German Kuh, Old Norse kyr, Danish, Swedish ko), earlier *kwom, from PIE *gwou- "cow, ox, bull" (cognates Sanskrit gaus, Greek bous, Latin bov-, Old Irish bo, Latvian guovs, Armenian gaus "cow," Slovak hovado "ox"), perhaps ultimately imitative of lowing (compare Sumerian gu, Chinese ngu, ngo "ox"). In Germanic and Celtic, of females only; in most other languages, of either gender. Other "cow" words sometimes are from roots meaning "horn, horned," such as Lithuanian karve, Old Church Slavonic krava. Compare kine.
- cow (v.)
- "intimidate," c. 1600, probably from Old Norse kuga "oppress," which is of unknown origin, but perhaps having something to do with cow (n.) on the notion of easily herded. Related: Cowed; cowing.
Example
- 1. Penny : she looks like a big fat cow .
- 2. One day depictions of cow tipping will be priceless .
- 3. Politicians fear high unemployment , which can cow the toughest governments .
- 4. An antenna on the cow 's ear can track its location and temperature .
- 5. In texas it 's illegal to put graffiti on someone else 's cow .