cowstealer

plural cowstealers

1. obsoletepossiblyOne who steals cattle.

   […] MCHWOIL, DONALD, a cowstealer, who was banished to the Plantations, at Inverness ...

   2005, David Dobson, More Scottish Settlers, 1667-1827, Genealogical Publishing Com, →ISBN, page 91

   3 more examples

   They fixed his Skeleton to a Gibbet, upon that of an Oxe, because he had been a Cowstealer; they made Shoes of his Skin, and a Shirt of his Bowels.

   1695, François Maximilien Misson, A New Voyage to Italy, page 15

   "They find it more honourable and safe to be king's evidence, than a cowstealer, though that be their natural profession."

   1823, Mathew Carey, Vindiciae historicae: or Ireland vindicated, page 304, quoting Ormond

   A Cowstealer's Trick.—“Some cowstealers will make a hole in a hott lofe newly drawn out of the oven, and putt it on an oxe's horn for a convenient time, and then they can turn their softned hornes the contrary way, so that the owner cannot [identify them].

   1881, Folklore Society (Great Britain), Publications, page 248