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killcow. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
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English
Etymology
From kill + cow.
Noun
killcow (plural killcows)
- (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.
- (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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