killcow
See also: kill-cow
English
Etymology
kill + cow
Noun
killcow (plural killcows)
- (obsolete) A butcher.
- c. 15th century, Anon., Old Ballad; quoted in Nares, Robert; Halliwell-Phillipps, James Orchard; Wright, Thomas, A Glossary; or, Collection of Words, Phrases, Names, and Allusions to Customs, Proverbs, etc., which have been thought to require illustration in the works of English Authors, Particularly Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, volume 2, new edition, London: Reeves and Turner, 1888, page 483:
- Of all occupations that now adays are used / I would not be a butcher, for that's to be refused; / For whatever is gotten, or whatever is gained, / He shall be call'd Kill-cow, and so shall be named.
- c. 1636, Anon., The London Chanticleers, scene 4; A Select Collection of Old English Plays, 4th edition, New York: Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1964:
- And how do I look now? Like one that was begotten under a butcher's stall, I warrant, and born in a slaughter-house? I know there's never a Kill-cow i' th' city becomes a woollen apron better than I do.
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- (obsolete, figuratively) A violent person; a bully; a brutal or indiscriminate killer.
- 1593, Harvey, Gabriel, Pierce's Supererogation; or, A New Praise of the Old Ass, published 1815, page 84:
- Muster his arrant braveries together, and where such a terrible kill-cow, or such a vengeable bull-beggar, to deal withal?
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Related terms
- killbuck, killcalf
References
- Farmer, John Stephen (1896) Slang and Its Analogues, volume 4, page 106
Anagrams
- Willock