cow – English noun declension

English noun forms of cow

Noun: cow
Singularcow
Pluralcows; cattle; kine

Sample Sentences

  • The whole herd is out to pasture right now — the cows, calves, and heifers are out back, and the bulls are down by the creek.
  • We saw lots of cows at the farm show, including some surprisingly gigantic bulls.
  • The only meat I eat is cow.
  • […] the worst insult to a woman, either in London or Paris, is "cow"; a name which might even be a compliment, for cows are among the most likeable of animals. [1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter XXXII, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], →OCLC:]
  • Greville Preston: You've been set up, you silly cow. Now, don't let me hear any more about this unless you have absolute stand-up-in-court proof it's kosher...
  • Mattie Storin: Pig. [1990, House of Cards, Season 1, Episode 2:]
  • By the time of my third, five months ago, I was a right bossy cow about what I wanted because I knew the drill. For reasons I shan’t bore you with, I got them to induce me at 39 weeks, at 10am, with the epidural going in first, and it was all a dream. [2014 December 5, Marina Hyde, “Childbirth is as awful as it is magical, thanks to our postnatal ‘care’”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 15 Apr 2021:]
  • Colonel Red Reeder, West Point Second Classman
  • An assistant manager, wearing the stripes of a cadet corporal, walked up to Coach Smith. Clint knew him, a Cow from B-l. What had he done to become so outstanding that the Tacs made him a corporal?
  • When I was a cow (junior) at West Point, I dated a plebe (freshman), which is considered fraternization in the cadet realm. [2023, James E Parco, David A Levy, Daphne DePorres, Attitudes Aren't Free: A Call to Action, page 242:]

Nouns inflected like cow

cow,

Etymology

1. Etymology tree
2. Proto-Indo-European *gʷṓws
3. Proto-Germanic *kōz
4. Proto-West Germanic *kō
5. Old English cū
6. Middle English cow
7. English cow
8. Inherited from Middle English cow, cou, from Old English cū (“cow”), from Proto-West Germanic *kō, from Proto-Germanic *kōz (“cow”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷṓws (“cow”).
9. Cognate with Sanskrit गो (go), Ancient Greek βοῦς (boûs), Persian گاو (gâv)), Latvian govs (“cow”), Proto-Slavic *govędo (Serbo-Croatian govedo, Russian говядина (govjadina, “beef”), Scots coo (“cow”), North Frisian ko, kø (“cow”), West Frisian ko (“cow”), Dutch koe (“cow”), Low German Koh, Koo, Kau (“cow”), German Kuh (“cow”), Danish and Swedish ko (“cow”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk ku (“cow”), Faroese kúgv (“cow”), Icelandic kýr (“cow”), Latin bōs (“ox, bull, cow”) (whence English beef), Armenian կով (kov, “cow”). Doublet of beef.
10. The plural kine is from Middle English kyne, kyn, kuin, kiin, kien (“cows”), either a double plural of Middle English ky, kye (“cows”), equivalent to modern kye + -en, or inherited from Old English cūna (“cows', of cows”), genitive plural of cū (“cow”). See: Middle English Nouns 'cow', Middle English Nouns 'cow', Ancient Greek Nouns 'βοῦς', Latvian Nouns 'govs', Dutch Nouns 'koe', German Nouns 'Kuh', Faroese Nouns 'kúgv', Icelandic Nouns 'kýr', Latin Nouns 'bōs', Middle English Nouns 'kyne', Old English Nouns 'cūna'.

Verbs referencing "cow"

Latin Nouns bos, French Nouns bœuf, Latvian Nouns govs, Ancient Greek Nouns βοῦς, English Nouns boviculture.