Definition of "cowled"

She had thrown a shawl about her and, as they went together towards the tram, sprays of her fresh warm breath flew gaily above her cowled head and her shoes tapped blithely on the glassy road.

1916 December 29, James Joyce, “Chapter 2”, in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, New York, N.Y.: B[enjamin] W. Huebsch, pages 75-76

Very soon I became aware that I must have got off the path, for snow-cowled shrubs lay directly in my way […]

1923, E. F. Benson, “The Horror-Horn”, in Visible and Invisible‎, London: Hutchinson

We went out into the moonless and tortuous network of that incredibly ancient town; went out as the lights in the curtained windows disappeared one by one, and the Dog Star leered at the throng of cowled, cloaked figures that poured silently from every doorway and formed monstrous processions up this street...

1925 January, H. P. Lovecraft, The Festival, first published in Weird Tales

There were […] drifts of wood-smoke blowing from cowled chimneys.

1977, Richard Adams, The Plague Dogs, Penguin, 1978, Fit 6, p. 234