Contextualizebeta

cowboy

noun
/ˈkaʊˌbɔɪ/

Etymology

PIE word *gʷṓws From cow + boy. More on Wikipedia.

  1. derived from *bʰā-✻
  2. derived from *bō-✻ — “brother, close male relation”
  3. inherited from *bōjô✻ — “younger brother, young male relation”
  4. inherited from *bōjō✻
  5. inherited from *bōia✻ — “boy”
  6. inherited from boy//boye — “servant, commoner, knave, boy”
  7. compounded as cowboy — “cow + boy”

Definitions

  1. A man who tends free-range cattle, especially in the American West.

  2. A man who identifies with cowboy culture, including wearing a cowboy hat and being a fan…

    A man who identifies with cowboy culture, including wearing a cowboy hat and being a fan of country and western music.

  3. A person who engages in reckless behavior, especially for the purpose of showing off.

  4. ›+ 4 more definitions

    1. A dishonest or incompetent independent tradesman.

    2. A playing card of king rank.

    3. Ellipsis of cowboy pool.

    4. To work as a cowboy, herding cattle.

      • Besides cowboying he worked at a small sawmill that cut logs into "four slabs and a tie" and sold ties to the railroad.
      • Derwood Bailey cowboyed for 50 cents a day, a noon meal, and a gallon of oats for his horse.
      • I still had never ridden or cowboyed, and I wanted to learn something about it. I'd been making the damn saddles for years but didn't know how to use them.

The neighborhood

Derived

all hat and no cowboy, canteen cowboy, cocaine cowboy, cocksucking cowboy, cowboy action shooting, cowboy beans, cowboy boot, cowboy butter, cowboy caviar, cowboy chord, cowboy church, cowboy coffee, cowboy-hatted, cowboyish, cowboyism, cowboyitis, cowboy killer, cowboylike, cowboy load, cowboys and Indians, cowboy shot, cowboy shower, cowboy steak, cowboy supper, cowboy tea, cowboy up, cowpunk, cybercowboy, drugstore cowboy, glowboy, keyboard cowboy, mail-order cowboy, milk-bar cowboy, noncowboy, Queen's cowboy, rhinestone cowboy, singing cowboy, space cowboy

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for cowboy. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA