Other forms: cows
A cow is a big farm animal kept for milk and meat. Milk the cows, a herd of cows, a dairy cow.
Strictly a cow is a female that has calved; a heifer has not, a bull is the entire male and a steer is castrated — though cow is used loosely for all cattle. There is no singular of cattle, which is why cow does the work. Cow is also the female of elephants, whales and several other large animals. Note till the cows come home; and a sacred cow.
1nouncowA farm animal kept for milk and meat.
“A dairy cow gives about thirty litres a day.”
2nounfemaleThe female of elephants, whales and other large animals.
“The elephant cow stayed close to her calf.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
cow is an animal.
Old English cu goes back to a Proto-Indo-European root that gives Sanskrit go, Greek bous and Latin bos. It is one of the oldest reconstructible words in the language.
Proto-Indo-European
*gʷṓws
Middle English
cow
English, today
cow
From Middle English cow. Middle English cow, cou, from Old English cū (“cow”), from Proto-West Germanic kō, from Proto-Germanic kōz (“cow”), from Proto-Indo-European gʷṓws (“cow”). Cognate with Sanskrit गो, Ancient Greek βοῦς, Persian گاو), Latvian govs (“cow”), Proto-Slavic govędo (Serbo-Croatian govedo, Russian говядина (“beef”), Scots coo (“cow”), frr ko, kø (“cow”), West Frisian ko (“cow”), Dutch koe (“cow”), Low German Koh (“cow”), German Kuh (“cow”), Danish and Swedish ko (“cow”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk ku (“cow”), Faroese kúgv (“cow”), Icelandic kýr (“cow”), Latin bōs (“ox, bull, cow”) (whence English beef), Armenian կով (“cow”). a doublet of beef.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA