[f. COW sb.1 + GATE, GAIT going, walk: cf. sheep-walk. It was originally a syntactic combination, with ky-gates, kine-gates = cows’ gates in pl.] A pasture over which a cow may range; pasture for a cow, e.g., in a common field.
1597. Wills & Inv. N. C., II. 277. To Thomas Hall … the howse that William Walton dwelt in, and vj kye-gaytes, in Wingait grainge.
1607–8. N. Riding Records, IV. 136. Conveyance of one messuage in Ebberston with fower kyne-gaites.
1788. W. H. Marshall, Yorksh. (1796), I. 41. Not to let … a cow-gait to a cottager.
1802. Hull Advertiser, 17 April, 1/2. Some good Cow Gates at Maiden Hills to be let.
1806. A. Young, Agric. Essex (1813), I. 50. On the enclosure of Great and Little Chesterford, the cottagers that had cow-gates on the commons, had allotments of land, which they now cultivate in wheat, potatoes, &c.
1884. Cheshire Gloss. (E. D. S.), Cow-gate, the right to pasture a cow on common land. Many of the farms at Frodsham have so many cow-gates on Frodsham marsh according to the size of the farm.
