Cow-boy

This word, at first simply meaning a boy who looks after cows, acquired an opprobrious meaning in the War of the Revolution. (See quotation from Thacher.) When the great cattle-ranches of the West were created, the cow-boy became a picturesque and vivacious personage.

1725.  

1775–83.  Banditti within the British lines have received the names of Cow-boys and Skinners.—Thacher, ‘Military Journal’ (1823), p. 285. (N.E.D.)

1802.  Every cow-boy in Scotland attempts to become an author, and with the effrontery of Belzebub they will venture neck and limb on writing a book; and when they are found out afterwards to be nothing better than common plagiarists and imposters, their character stands in as good a situation as it was before.—J. T. Callender, ‘Letters to Alexander Hamilton, King of the Feds,’ pp. 15–6 (N.Y.).

1825.  The tories! the skinners! the cow boys!—the white boys! all the country!—John Neal, ‘Brother Jonathan,’ ii. 114.

1825.  He has brought six or seven cowboys to the halter, for burning up your house, I am told.—Id., ii. 445.

1842.  This reminded Mr. Gentry (of Tenn.) of a certain gang of people in the days of our Revolution, who were then called “cow-boys,” who fought neither for Whigs nor Tories, but sold beef to both.—House of Repr., March 28: Cong. Globe, p. 363.

1844.  “Our Jake,” an interesting specimen of the genus “cowboy”—whose clear whistle resounds through the forest, clears the bars of the last lingering herd trooping to pasture.—Watmough, ‘Scribblings and Sketches,’ p. 182.

1856.  [President Buchanan] like the cowboys of the Revolution, can see nothing right in his own people, and nothing wrong among their opponents.—Mr. Washburne of Maine, House of Repr., Dec. 10: Cong. Globe, p. 36, App.

1857.  The driver threw aside the dignity of his office and fraternized with the cow-boy.—Knick. Mag., l. 291 (Sept.).

1884.  The latest troubles between cow-boys and Indians will cause an outbreak.—Miles City (Montana) Press, June. (N.E.D.)