sb. and a. Obs. exc. dial. Also 6–7 kilcow(e. [f. KILL v. + COW sb.1]
A. sb. 1. A swashbuckler, bully, braggadocio; a terrible or great person; a man of importance.
1589. R. Harvey, Pl. Perc. (1590), A iij. What neede all this stir? this banding of kilcowes to fight with a shadow?
1639. Earl Strafford, Lett. & Disp. (1739), II. 307. A captain he is, but no such great Kill-Cow as they would have him.
1650. Bayly, Herba Parietis, 127. One Hamon (a notable kill-cow and noted dueller).
a. 1734. North, Lives (1826), I. 91. Well known to be one of the greatest kill-cows at drinking in the nation.
1896. Dial. Notes, I. 22 (E. D. D.). ‘He’s no great killcow,’ i. e. he doesn’t amount to much (of a person who thinks himself somebody).
2. dial. A serious affair; a matter involving great trouble or loss. (Usually in negative phr.)
1825–80. Jamieson, s.v., Ye needna mind, I’m sure it’s nae sic great kill-cow.
1886. Elworthy, W. Som. Word-bk., s.v., Twadn no such kill-cow job arter all.
3. A nickname for a butcher. rare.
[?]. Old Ballad (N.). I would not be a butcher … For … He shall be call’d Kill-cow, and so shall be named.
4. A kind of spike-rush: see quot.
1898. Britton & Brown, Flora North. Canada, Index, Eleocharis tenuis. Slender Spike-rush, Kill-cow.
B. adj. Bragging, bullying; terrifying. Kill-cow fray, something made up to terrify.
1589. Nashe, Ded. to Greene’s Menaphon (Arb.), 6. The ingrafted overflow of some kilcow conceipt. Ibid. (1592), P. Penilesse (ed. 2), 11 b. In this vaine of kilcow vanitie.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage, I. II. xii. 145. Like Semiramis Elephants which were but stuffed oxe-hides, kill-cow-frayes.
1633. Shirley, Young Admiral, IV. iii. You are afraid Of him, belike: ’tis such a kill-cow gentleman!
Hence † Killcow v. trans., to terrify with threatening looks; to cow.
1592. G. Harvey, Pierce’s Super., in Archaica, II. 142. A new art to kill-cow men with peremptory termes, and bugges-wordes.
