▪ I. ˈcow-ˌhide, ˈcowhide, n.
[Formerly pronounced with stress on hide, or with equal stress.]
1. The hide of a cow (stript off, ‘raw,’ or ‘dressed’). (Also pl. † kine hides.)
| 1640–1 Kirkcudbr. War-Comm. Min. Bk. (1855) 148 The best kyne hydes, being rough, be sold for iiij libs. 1676 Hobbes Iliad (1677) 141 He himself slept on a good cow⁓hide. a 1680 Butler Rem. I. 191 In a Robe of Cow-hide, Sat yeasty Pride. 1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1790) VII. 127 (Jod.) A negro..his left arm wrapped round with a cow⁓hide. 1827 G. Higgins Celtic Druids 83 Ships made of wicker, covered with bolg or cow-hides. |
2. Leather made of the hide of the cow.
| 1728 Pope Dunc. i. 150 There Caxton slept, with Wynkyn at his side, One clasp'd in wood, and one in strong cow-hide. 1759 Goldsm. Polite Learn. ix, Bound in cow-hide and closed with clasps of brass. |
3. U.S. A strong whip made of the raw or dressed hide of the cow. Cf. rawhide.
| 1818 M. Birkbeck Lett. fr. Illinois 90 The enraged barrister, with a hand-whip, or cow-hide, as they are called..actually cut his jacket to ribbons. 1839 Marryat Diary Amer. Ser. i. III. 230 He would receive forty lashes with a cow-hide. 1862 Sala Ship Chandler i. 6 The correction of a cowhide would be of the greatest possible benefit. |
4. attrib. (ˈkaʊhaɪd). Made of cow-hide.
| 1823 W. Faux Memorable Days Amer. 305 One man then bound him to a tree and lashed him with a cow-hide whip. 1840 R. H. Dana Bef. Mast v. 12 He..wore thick, cow⁓hide boots. 1850 Mrs. Stowe Uncle Tom's C. xxxiii, Kicking the woman with his heavy cow-hide shoe. 1854 J. Stephens Centr. Amer. (1854) 323 A heavy cowhide whip. 1947 E. H. Paul Linden on Saugus Branch 210 He had a plug hat..and cowhide boots without buttons or laces. |
▪ II. ˈcow-hide, cowhide, v.
[f. prec. n., sense 3.]
trans. To flog with a cow-hide.
| 1794 Kentucky Gaz. (Lexington, Ky.) 1 Mar. 2/3 In November 1792..a justice of the peace was cited to appear before the house of Delegates... Some he had horse-whipped; others he had cow-hided. 1855 Carlyle Misc. (1857) IV. 356 He got his skin well beaten—cow-hided, as we may say—by Charles XII., the rough Swede, clad mostly in leather. 1864 W. Whitby Amer. Slav. 194 Cowhiding the half-naked back of a slave. 1874 M. Collins Frances III. 84 Cowhided by a lady. |
Hence ˈcow-hiding vbl. n.
| 1832–4 De Quincey Cæsars Wks. IX. 50 Dacia, that needed a cow-hiding for insolence. 1889 Sat. Rev. 23 Mar. 341/1 Tall talk, which would hardly procure an extra cow-hiding per diem for a Bowery editor. |