cow-orker

See also: coworker and co-worker

English

Alternative forms

• cow orker

Etymology

Deliberate corruption of co-worker, perhaps in imitation of pronunciation errors in early text-to-speech software.

Pronunciation

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

cow-orker (plural cow-orkers)

1. (humorous) co-worker
   • 1989, Charles Anderson, “Re: Words (mundane)”, in alt.sca‎^[1] (Usenet):

     The above quote has been rated as gross, digusting,^[sic] and tacky by my cow-orkers at work...are you a cow orker?

   • 1998, cluelessnewbie, Re: I give up on alt.slack, alt.slack, [2]

     At this point, my cow-orker got real pissed off and firmly and courageously said: Hey, as a result of channeling, I discovered I used to be a cow in a previous lifetime.

   • 2006, Richard Bos, “Re: Casting malloc (was: Reading a string of unknown size)”, in comp.lang.c‎^[3] (Usenet):

     You must be a popular cow-orker.

Further reading

• Eric S[teven] Raymond, editor (2003 December 29), “cow-orker”, in The Jargon File, version 4.4.7.

Anagrams

• Rockower