Meanings
- obsoleteA butcher.
With any summe you are afraid to lose / But in the night, but then take heed of those / Base Padding Rascalls, for their kill-calfe law / I am not priuy to, I neuer saw / Them, nor their actions, then I cannot show / How to preuent the thing I doe not know.
1628, John Clavell, A Recantation of an Ill Led Life, page 351 more example
Sir Francis Drake's ship at Deptford, my Lord Mayor's barge, and divers secret and unsuspected places, and there they make private shambles with kill-calf cruelty, and sheep slaughtering murder, to the abuse of Lent, the deceiving of the informers, and the great grief of every zealous fishmonger.
1630, John Taylor, “Jack A Lent: His Beginning and Entertainment”, in Works of John Taylor, the Water Poet, London: Reeves and Turner, published 1876, pages 12–13 - figurativelyobsoleteA violent person.
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
Cite this entry
killcalf. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/killcalf
“killcalf.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/killcalf. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “killcalf,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/killcalf.
Source: killcalf on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.