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cowan

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cowan¹

  • /ˈkəʊən/ UK

Rhymes with -əʊən

Where it comes from

First attested in 1598.

noun cowans · cowanis · kowan · cowen

  1. A worker in unmortared stone; a stonemason who has not served an apprenticeship.
  2. A person who attempts to pass himself off as a Freemason without having experienced the rituals or going through the degrees.
  3. slang A sneak; an inquisitive or prying person.
  4. attributive Uninitiated, outside, “profane”.

cowan²

  • /ˈkaʊən/

Where it comes from

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

noun cowans

  1. Scotland, obsolete, rare A fishing-boat.

Cowan³

proper noun Cowans · Cowin · Cowing

  1. A Scottish surname from Scottish Gaelic; an anglicization of mac Eoghainn (“son of Ewen”)
  2. A surname from Irish; an anglicization of mac Eógain (“son of Owen”)
  3. A Jewish surname from Hebrew; a variant of Cohen.
  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. A town in western Manitoba, Canada.
  6. A census-designated place in Stanislaus County, California.
  7. An unincorporated community in Monroe Township, Delaware County, Indiana.
  8. An unincorporated community in Buffalo Township, Union County, Pennsylvania.
  9. 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.

Thesaurus

Closest in meaning: kwan, cowen, mctaggart, quan, kuan, stoneworker, stonemason, roughsetter, mason, stonelayer, stonebreaker, stonecutter, coalworker, cokeman, undercraft, workman

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MLA

"cowan." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/cowan. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

cowan. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/cowan

Chicago

"cowan." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/cowan.

BibTeX
@misc{cowan_2026,
  title = {cowan},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/cowan},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}