killcow

See also: kill-cow

English

Etymology

kill +‎ cow

Noun

killcow (plural killcows)

  1. (obsolete) A butcher.
    • c. 15th century, anonymous author, 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, new edition, volume 2, 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, anonymous author, 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.
  2. (obsolete, figuratively) A violent person; a bully; a brutal or indiscriminate killer.
    • 1593, Gabriel Harvey, 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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