Cow

Cow, kow, n. the female of the bovine animals: the female of certain other animals, as the elephant, &c.—older plurals, Kine and Kye, the latter now only Scotch.—ns. Cow′-bane, the water-hemlock, often destructive to cattle; Cow′-berr′y, the red whortleberry; Cow′-bird, -bunt′ing, an American starling which accompanies cattle, and drops its eggs into other birds' nests; Cow′-boy, a boy who has the care of cows: (U.S.) a man who has the charge of cattle on a ranch; Cow′-calf, a female calf; Cow′-catch′er (U.S.), an apparatus on the front of railway engines to throw off obstacles; Cow′-cher′vil, -pars′ley, -weed, an umbelliferous European plant of the hedges and woods; Cow′feeder, a dairyman, cowherd; Cow′-grass, the zigzag clover: a variety of red clover; Cow′-heel, an ox-foot stewed to a jelly; Cow′herd, one who herds cows; Cow′hide, the hide of a cow: the hide of a cow made into leather: a coarse whip made of twisted strips of cowhide.—v.t. to whip with a cowhide.—n. Cow′-house, a place in which cows are stalled, a byre.—adj. Cow′ish, like a cow: (Shak.) cowardly.—ns. Cow′-leech, a cow-doctor; Cow′lick, a tuft of turned-up hair on the forehead; Cow′-pars′nip, an umbelliferous plant, used as food for hogs and cattle; Cow′-plant, a perennial plant of Ceylon, with a milky juice; Cow′-pox, a disease which appears in pimples on the teats of the cow, the matter thereof used for vaccination; Cow′-tree, a South American tree that produces a nourishing fluid resembling milk; Cow′-wheat, a genus of annual plants, with yellow flowers and seeds somewhat like grains of wheat. [A.S. cú, pl. cý; Ger. kuh; Sans. go.]