Alderney
(ˈɔːldənɪ)
[The name of one of the Channel Islands.]
Properly, the designation of the cattle bred in Alderney; popularly used attrib. or ellipt. as a general name for the cattle (mostly light or dark fawn-coloured) of the Channel Islands, including those of Jersey and Guernsey; also, an animal of this breed.
| 1771 Smollett Humph. Cl. I. 2 Let Morgan's widow have the Alderney cow. 1772 F. Boscawen Let. 11 July in C. F. Aspinall-Oglander Admiral's Widow (1942) v. 34 We..have a great deal of garden, two fields and an Alderney cow. 1816 Jane Austen Emma I. iv. 50 Eight cows, two of them Alderneys. 1834 Youatt Cattle 267 The Alderney, considering its voracious appetite..yields very little milk. 1853 Mrs. Gaskell Cranford i. 7 An old lady had an Alderney cow, which she looked upon as a daughter. 1854 Dickens Hard T. ii. x, She didn't give any milk, ma'am; she gave bruises. She was a regular Alderney at that. 1875 in J. Coleman Cattle Gt. Brit. 139 The Channel Island breed of cattle, popularly known in this country as ‘Alderneys’, consists of two classes... The Guernsey is the larger of the two, usually of a light fawn colour... The Jersey class is smaller. 1910 Encycl. Brit. V. 539/2 (Cattle) The term Alderney is obsolete, the cattle of Alderney being mainly a type of the Guernsey breed. 1918 Galsworthy Five Tales v. 292 Listening to the starlings and skylarks, and the Alderney cows chewing the cud. |