ˈcow-skin, n.
1. The skin of a cow (when stripped off); the same dressed as a mat, a covering for trunks, or the like. Also attrib.
| 1780 in Narrag. Hist. Reg. I. 101 Carried the cow skin to tann by George Wilson. 1809 Repertory (Boston) 6 Oct. (Th.), A green or untanned cowskin whip. 1848 Thackeray Van. Fair i, With a very small and weather-beaten old cow's-skin trunk. 1863 S. C. Massett Drifting About 155 He with trowsers tucked into his cowskin boots..wended his way to the stage office. 1887 Outing (U.S.) X. 119/1 If I only had that cow-skin horse now what I used ter own back in old Missouri. |
2. Leather made of the skin of the cow or ox.
3. A whip of raw hide; = cow-hide 3.
| 1822 Cobbett Rur. Rides (1885) I. 87 He belaboured him with the ‘cowskin’. 1864 W. Whitby Amer. Slav. 187 The man who wields the blood-clotted cow-skin. |
Hence cow-skin v., to flog with a cow-skin.
| 1799 Aurora (Philad.) 20 May (Th.), I am a constable, and may therefore kick, cuff, beat, bruise, cowskin, or kill any man I please. 1836 Crockett Exploits & Adv. Texas (1837) 78 The devil himself might, the next time, undertake to cowskin such a..scoundrel for him. a 1849 Poe W. E. Channing Wks. 1864 III. 239 Napoleon Buonaparte Jones..is cowskinned with perfect regularity five times a month. 1947 West Pennsylvania Hist. Mag. Sept.–Dec. 132 The ‘cowskinning’ incident..was the final blow. |