Definition of "cowlet"
cowlet
noun
plural cowlets
A young or little cow; a female calf.
Quotations
—Chicago boasts of a citizen of fine discrimination and delicacy, who, riding in the suburbs with his best girl, passed a stable in the door of which stood a couple of calves. “See,” said the young lady, “those two cute little cowlets.” “Those are not cowlets, Araminta; they are bullets.”
1886, Hamilton Literary Magazine, Clippings, page 110
After a short while a thin small cow was released from the gangway leading to the menagerie. Provided with a scarlet cape, Juanito strutted forward towards the scampering cowlet. […] So in vest and black clown’s pantaloons, he provoked the cowlet and played the heavy matador. With all the grand airs of a Bombita Chica or a Montes he advanced to the assault. The dutiful cowlet gave a low. The little cow almost laughed to see such sport.
1932, Wyndham Lewis, Snooty Baronet, Haskell House Publishers Ltd., published 1971, page 201
Book Agent. Oh, so you are interested in farming? Isn’t that a coincidence? The Everyday Encyclopedia Of Useful Facts included a five-hundred-and-seventy-three-page volume on farm and country life. / Mr. Jordan. (Interested) It does! / Book Agent. It certainly does. I think I have some sample leaflets here. (Opens a briefcase and takes out a pamphlet with some colored pages in it) See! Here is a picture showing a group of contented little cowlets browsing by a babbling brook. / Mr. Jordan. (Puzzled) Cowlets? / Book Agent. Yes, little cows. Aren’t they dears? / Mr. Jordan. I thought you said they were cows. / Book Agent. (Laughs) Now, aren’t you the clever one, though?
1934, Boyce Loving, Swappers: A Comedy in Three Acts, page 25
“I am not sure a compilation of odds and ends should be called a ‘book.’ Perhaps ‘booklet’ would be the better designation. My daughter, when quite young, once spoke of a heifer calf she saw grazing on the rim of the road as a ‘cowlet.’ In reality, the wayside animal was a ‘bullet.’ Though this book, or booklet, isn’t even calf-bound, the analogy should have been close enough to make me wary of jumping to a conclusion. However, it is too late now.
1937, Quarterly Bulletin: The Historical Society of Northwestern Ohio, page 17
YES — imagine, if you can, that all human beings are cows and or bulls for just one day (I just can’t stand the thoughts of being a cow for more than one day). SO — lets[sic] take the cow and bull side of the question first. REMEMBER — you are a cow or bull. Mrs. Cow has been home all day busy getting the cotton seed meal and hulls ready for dinner, tending to the little cowlets and bullets and baking a bale of hay.
1959, C. B. Kitchens, X-syrps from the Trickem News Chronic, page 5
What’s a meta for anyway, I say, if not to mix with chicken lips, cow intestines and pig ganglia, foisted on poor defenseless cowlets held captive in feed lots for a significant portion of their tiny, meaningless lives, destined for the compressed air gun, the hook, and the heavy hammer, and the human Bar-B-Q bun, rotisserie and intestinal villi.
2004, Michael A. Lewis, “Culture”, in Écritage, Arana Gulch Press, published 2010, Endangered Species: January 1, 2004, page 27