killcalf

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to navigation Jump to search
See also: kill-calf

English

[edit]

Etymology

[edit]

From kill +‎ calf.

Noun

[edit]

killcalf

  1. (obsolete) A butcher.
    • 1628, John Clavell, A Recantation of an Ill Led Life[1], page 35:
      With any summe you are afraid to lose / But in the night, but then take heed of those / Base Padding Rascalls, for their kill-calfe law / I am not priuy to, I neuer saw / Them, nor their actions, then I cannot show / How to preuent the thing I doe not know.
    • 1630, John Taylor, “Jack A Lent: His Beginning and Entertainment”, in Works of John Taylor, the Water Poet[2], London: Reeves and Turner, published 1876, pages 12–13:
      Sir Francis Drake's ship at Deptford, my Lord Mayor's barge, and divers secret and unsuspected places, and there they make private shambles with kill-calf cruelty, and sheep slaughtering murder, to the abuse of Lent, the deceiving of the informers, and the great grief of every zealous fishmonger.
  2. (obsolete, figuratively) A violent person.

Synonyms

[edit]

References

[edit]