cowboy

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Origin: 1779

Before it had any special application to America, cowboy was used in England with the obvious meaning: "a boy who took care of cows." Or he could have been a man, for boy implied not only youth and boyish attitudes but also low status.

Although the descriptive but uncomplimentary word cowboy was already around, Americans did invent two new meanings for it. The first, now forgotten meaning came during the American Revolution. It was the revolutionary patriots' term for pro-British raiders who operated in the boundary between American and British forces in Westchester County, New York. They harassed and plundered the rural districts; a later writer said, "they went around in the bushes armed with guns and tinkling a cow-bell so as to beguile the patriots into the brush hunting for cows." On the other side there were equally troublesome pro-independence raiders called skinners.

A quite different kind of cowboy came to national and worldwide attention after the Civil War, when for two decades thousands of cowboys drove millions of longhorn cattle from Texas to the new transcontinental railroads in Kansas and Colorado. The English speakers who first settled the Southwest had learned the skills of controlling cattle from Spanish-speaking vaqueros, a name translated crudely as buckaroos. But those who hired the minimum-wage, equal-opportunity horsemen for the big cattle drives of 1866-86 simply called them cowboys, a term attested as early as 1849, and that was the name that stuck. And though they were poorly paid and worked under the harshest conditions, or perhaps just because of those circumstances, the cowboy became the most enduring legend of the American West. Building on this legend, cowboy today still is used to mean someone who is reckless, impulsive, and dangerous. It can also be modified to mean someone who merely puts on airs of being tough or sophisticated: a drugstore cowboy.

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The heirs of ancient pastoral traditions, cowboys have worked as mounted herders on the cattle ranges of the American West for more than three centuries. They First rose to national prominence as an occupational group, however, with the rapid expansion of the western range cattle industry during the second half of the nineteenth century. Cowboy life attracted young, unmarried men, most of them in their late teens and early twenties, from a variety of social and ethnic backgrounds. Whatever their age and upbringing, cowboys, sometimes called "cowhands," "cowpunchers," or "buckaroos," pursued a demanding and sometimes dangerous occupation that required stamina, athleticism, and a specialized knowledge of horses and cattle.

At roundup time cowhands lived undomiciled for months at a time gathering, sorting, branding, and driving cattle. They Typically worked in crews consisting of ten or twelve men under the command of a range boss and supported a cook and a chuck wagon, which carried the outfit's food and bedrolls. Each cowboy maintained a string of a half-dozen or more horses, which he changed periodically throughout the work day. Despite toiling long hours, often under difficult conditions, for wages that in the 1880s ranged from $25 to $30 per month, cowboys were self-reliant, fiercely independent, and rarely organized labor unions or engaged in strikes.

Skilled ropers and riders, American cowboys employed tools and techniques perfected by Spanish vaqueros (cowboys) in Mexico and the southwestern United States. They Snared livestock with ropes made of rawhide or Manila hemp and rode heavy stock saddles equipped with a horn, which served as a snubbing posts while roping. Cowboys also adopted a distinctive, often colorful style of dress that reflected the requirements of the job, the local work environment, and personal taste. Most wore wide-brimmed hats to protect their head from sun and weather, tall-topped boots with underslung heels to help secure their feet in the saddle stirrups, and spurs, sometimes embellished with silver, to motivate their horses. In brush-infested regions they also donned leather leggings, called chaps, shorthand for the Spanish term chaparejos. Most ranchers, however, banned the wearing of firearms along with drinking and gambling.

During the era of the open range, cowboy work was seasonal, lasting from spring until fall. Ranchers laid off most of their cowboys during the winter months, retaining only a few to keep track of their herds and watch for cattle thieves, Many of whom were out-of-work ranch hands. Driving cattle to railhead markets usually fell to separate crews of professional drovers hired by independent contractors.

By the mid-1880s, the open range style of cattle ranching had given way to more organized methods. The advent of barbed wire fences, which divided the range into ever smaller pastures, allowed the separation and upgrading of cattle herds, reduced the number of hands needed to tend them, and changed cowboy life and work forever. In the new order, cowboys were often called upon to cut hay, fix windmills, and build fences as well as ride the range. Married cowboys became more common as twentieth-century advances in transportation and communication and denser settlement patterns mitigated rural isolation. The eventual introduction of motor vehicles and horse trailers which, along with better roads, allowed cowboys to return to their homes and families after each day's work, gradually eliminated chuck wagon–based roundups.

Amid the inexorable economic and social changes that swept away the open range and the unfettered lifestyle of the horseback cowboy, there emerged a more enduring cowboy of legend. By the turn of the twentieth century, literature, art, and popular culture had rescued cowboys from historical anonymity and negative stereotypes and replaced them with a rugged, chivalrous hero. The writings of such authors as Theodore Roosevelt, Owen Wister, and Zane Grey; the art of Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell; and the theatrics of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, shaped and polished the image of the cowboy hero, whose independence, individualism, bravery, and common sense became the ideal of American masculinity. Later, motion picture and television portrayals by such actors as William S. Hart, Tom Mix, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers, further defined and reinforced the model, as did countless novels and short stories. The sport of rodeo also played a part in establishing the cowboy's heroic image, while dude ranches offered western tourists the chance to vicariously participate by dressing in western style clothing, riding horses, herding cattle, and imagining the open range. Meanwhile, shrewd merchants and advertisers capitalized on the universal appeal of cow boy imagery to sell a vast array products from cologne to cigarettes.

Bibliography

Dary, David. Cowboy Culture: A Saga of Five Centuries. New York: Knopf, 1981.

Price, B. Byron. Cowboys of the American West. San Diego, Calif.: Thunder Bay Books, 1996.

Rollins, Philip Ashton. The Cowboy: An Unconventional History of Civilization on the Old-Time Cattle Range. New York: Scribners, 1936.

Savage, William W., Jr. The Cowboy Hero. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1979.

Savage, William W., Jr., ed. Cowboy Life: Reconstructing an American Myth. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1975.

—B. Byron Price

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n. a reckless and independent man; a reckless driver. (Also a term of address.)  Come on, cowboy, finish your coffee and get moving.

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IN BRIEF: n. - A hired hand who tends cattle and performs other duties on horseback.

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noun
noun, orig US

1: A reckless or inconsiderate driver. (1942 —) .
Truckin' Life We have to weed out the cowboys....We need the top professional drivers (1984).

2: An unscrupulous, incompetent, or reckless person in business, esp. an unqualified one. (1972 —) .
Punch I started by ringing a few cowboys through the Yellow Pages, just to check on prices (1985).

[From cowboys' reputation for boisterousness.]

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For a list of words related to cowpoke, see:

• Ranching and Animal Husbandry - cowpoke: cowboy or cowgirl
• Affectionate Reference

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See words rhyming with "cowpoke."

  See crossword solutions for the clue Cowboy.

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - røgter, hensynsløs forretningsmand

Nederlands (Dutch)
cowboy, corrupte/ roekeloze zakenman

Français (French)
n. - cow-boy, fumiste

Deutsch (German)
n. - Cowboy, Gauner

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - αγελαδάρης, καουμπόης, (καθομ.) ασυνείδητος κομπιναδόρος

Italiano (Italian)
cow-boy

Português (Portuguese)
n. - vaqueiro (m)

Русский (Russian)
ковбой, безответственный

Español (Spanish)
n. - vaquero

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - cowboy, våghals (am. sl.)

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
牛仔, 牧童, 牛郎

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 牛仔, 牧童, 牛郎

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 카우보이, 무모한 자동차 운전자, 경관

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - カウボーイ
v. - すばやく殺す

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) راعي البقر‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮קאובוי, בוקר‬

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