Forms: 1 cú-hyrde, 5 cowhird, 6–7 -heard. [COW sb.1 + HERD2.] One whose occupation is to tend cows at pasture.
a. 1000. Rect. Sing., in Thorpe, A. S. Laws, I. 438. Cuhyrde ʓebyreð þæt he hæbbe ealdre cu meolc vii niht.
c. 1350. Will. Palerne, 4. A couherde, Þat fele winteres … had kepud Mennes ken of þe cuntre as a comen herde.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 97. Cowherde, vaccarius, vaccaria.
1568. Grafton, Chron., II. 89. His grandfather was but a poore Ploughman, and his father a Cowheard.
1672. Petty, Pol. Anat. (1691), 54. One-Cowherd will serve an hundred Oxen.
1874. Green, Short Hist., i. 26. A cowherd from whose lips … flowed the first great English song.
