Cow

kow, n. the female of the bovine animals: the female of certain other animals, as the elephant, .—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′-gra , 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 .]