Cowan

//ˈkaʊən// name, noun, slang

Definitions

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A Scottish surname from Scottish Gaelic; an anglicization of mac Eoghainn (“son of Ewen”)
  2. 2
    A surname from Irish; an anglicization of mac Eógain (“son of Owen”)
  3. 3
    A Jewish surname from Hebrew; a variant of Cohen.
  4. 4
    An outer suburb of Sydney in Hornsby Shire, New South Wales, Australia. Apparently an anglicization of a Yuin-Kuric word meaning “big water”.
  5. 5
    A town in western Manitoba, Canada.
Show 4 more definitions
  1. 6
    A place in the United States:; A census-designated place in Stanislaus County, California.
  2. 7
    A place in the United States:; An unincorporated community in Monroe Township, Delaware County, Indiana.
  3. 8
    A place in the United States:; An unincorporated community in Buffalo Township, Union County, Pennsylvania.
  4. 9
    A place in the United States:; A city in Franklin County, Tennessee; named after Dr. James Benjamin Cowan, a Civil War-era doctor whose family had lived in the area since the early 1800s.
Noun
  1. 1
    A worker in unmortared stone; a stonemason who has not served an apprenticeship.
  2. 2
    A fishing-boat. Scotland, obsolete, rare
  3. 3
    A person who attempts to pass himself off as a Freemason without having experienced the rituals or going through the degrees.
  4. 4
    A sneak; an inquisitive or prying person. slang
  5. 5
    Uninitiated, outside, “profane”. attributive

Etymology

Etymology 1

First attested in 1598.

Etymology 2

First attested in 1722; perhaps from the Scottish Gaelic cobhan (“coffer”, “box”, “ark”).

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