cawer

English

Etymology

caw +‎ -er

Noun

cawer (plural cawers)

1. One who caws, such as or like a bird.
   • 1817 April 17, John Keats, letter to J. H. Reynolds, number 22, quoted in 2012, Hyder Edward Rollins, The Letters of John Keats: Volume 1, 1814-1818: 1814-1821, Cambridge University Press (→ISBN), page 131:

     The Keep within side [...] a Co(l)lony of Jackdaws have been there many years—I dare say I have seen many a descendant of some old cawer who peeped through the Bars at Charles the first, when he was there in Confinement.

   • 1826, George Wood (Captain, 82nd Regiment), The Rambles of Redbury Rook, page 2:

     […] melodious choir of young cawers; for be it known that we birds, as well as  […]

   • 1841, J. W. Gibbs, “Art. VI.—Origin of the Names of Beasts, Birds, and Insects”, in The American Journal of Science, page 32:

     Chough, (Anglo-Sax. ceo, Fr. choucas and chouette;) from the root of Eng. to caw or to haw; as if the cawer or hawer.

   • 1853, "Falconry" [from the New Monthly Magazine], in The Living Age, page 275:

     As we plunge through the last bushes which separate us from the hawk, twenty cawers rise flurriedly from the ground; […]

   • 1919 June, The Game Breeder and Sportsman, volume 15, number 3; page 84 of the compiled volumes 14-15:

     A decoy owl mounted on a pole in connection with some good hooting or cawing surely will keep the guns hot in a place where crows ar abundant. This combination easily should win a Du Pont crow price. Sauter, the New York taxidermist, makes and sells the decoy owl; a little practice will make a good hooter or cawer.