killcow

plural killcows

1. obsoleteA butcher.

   Of all occupations that now adays are used / I would not be a butcher, for that's to be refused; / For whatever is gotten, or whatever is gained, / He shall be call'd Kill-cow, and so shall be named.

   c. 15th century, anonymous author, Old Ballad; quoted in Nares, Robert; Halliwell-Phillipps, James Orchard; Wright, Thomas, A Glossary; or, Collection of Words, Phrases, Names, and Allusions to Customs, Proverbs, etc., which have been thought to require illustration in the works of English Authors, Particularly Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, new edition, volume 2, London: Reeves and Turner, 1888, page 483

   1 more example

   And how do I look now? Like one that was begotten under a butcher's stall, I warrant, and born in a slaughter-house? I know there's never a Kill-cow i' th' city becomes a woollen apron better than I do.

   c. 1636, anonymous author, The London Chanticleers, scene 4; A Select Collection of Old English Plays, 4th edition, New York: Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1964

2. figurativelyobsoleteA violent person; a bully; a brutal or indiscriminate killer.

   Muster his arrant braveries together, and where such a terrible kill-cow, or such a vengeable bull-beggar, to deal withal?

   1593, Gabriel Harvey, Pierce's Supererogation; or, A New Praise of the Old Ass, published 1815, page 84