"cowcatcher" meaning in English

See cowcatcher in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: cowcatchers [plural]
Etymology: cow + catcher Etymology templates: {{root|en|ine-pro|*keh₂p-}}, {{compound|en|cow|catcher}} cow + catcher Head templates: {{en-noun}} cowcatcher (plural cowcatchers)
  1. (rail transport, principally US) The V-shaped device on the front of a locomotive (or other large vehicle) shaped so as to push objects on the tracks out of the way, to prevent major damage to the train. Categories (topical): Rail transportation Synonyms: pilot
    Sense id: en-cowcatcher-en-noun-azzTO-P7 Categories (other): American English, English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with language name categories using raw markup Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 84 16 Disambiguation of English entries with language name categories using raw markup: 89 11 Topics: rail-transport, railways, transport
  2. (radio, advertising) An advertisement at the start of a programme. Categories (topical): Advertising, Radio
    Sense id: en-cowcatcher-en-noun-sVLsfzou Topics: advertising, broadcasting, business, marketing, media, radio
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Related terms: fender, lifeguard, snowplough

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for cowcatcher meaning in English (4.7kB)

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      "args": {
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        "2": "cow",
        "3": "catcher"
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  "pos": "noun",
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      "_dis1": "0 0",
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  "senses": [
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          "name": "Rail transportation",
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          "ref": "1942 February, “Notes and News: An Historic American Locomotive”, in Railway Magazine, page 56",
          "text": "With its long tapered cowcatcher, massive headlamp and enormous diamond smokestack behind, wagon-top boiler, high running-plate above the driving-wheels reached from a front door in the square side-window cab, cylinders with slide valves mounted on top, and double bogie tender, General in its present form is typical of much earlier American locomotive practice.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016, Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad, Fleet (2017), page 83",
          "text": "The locomotive was black, an ungainly contraption led by the triangular snout of the cowcatcher, though there would be few animals where this engine was headed.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
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          "ref": "2023 January 11, Richard Foster, “British Rail's weirdest railways...: Wisbech & Upwell Tramway”, in RAIL, number 974, page 46",
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          "type": "quotation"
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        "The V-shaped device on the front of a locomotive (or other large vehicle) shaped so as to push objects on the tracks out of the way, to prevent major damage to the train."
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        "(rail transport, principally US) The V-shaped device on the front of a locomotive (or other large vehicle) shaped so as to push objects on the tracks out of the way, to prevent major damage to the train."
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        {
          "text": "Coordinate term: hitchhiker"
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        {
          "ref": "1945, Broadcasting, volume 29, page 55",
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          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1945, Charles Harold Sandage, Radio Advertising for Retailers, page 185",
          "text": "National advertisers have probably been major contributors to this practice through the use of so-called hitchhike and cowcatcher announcements.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009, George Ansbro, I Have a Lady in the Balcony, page 138",
          "text": "Sometime in the mid-40s, the Hummerts canceled Mr. Keen and Easy Aces from their early evening periods on CBS, which also killed my cowcatchers and hitchhikes.",
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        "(radio, advertising) An advertisement at the start of a programme."
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  "word": "cowcatcher"
}
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      "word": "lifeguard"
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      "word": "snowplough"
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        "(radio, advertising) An advertisement at the start of a programme."
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        "broadcasting",
        "business",
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        "radio"
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  "wikipedia": [
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  "word": "cowcatcher"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.