kill-cowとは 意味・読み方・使い方

名詞

killcow (複数形 killcows)

1. (obsolete) A butcher.
   • c. 15y, 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, ‎^[1]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.

2. (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^[2], 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?

関連する語

• killbuck, killcalf

参照

• Farmer, John Stephen (1896) Slang and Its Analogues‎^[3], volume 4, page 106