Word.ws English Dictionary

bell cows

bell cows is the plural of bell cow.

Meaning of bell cow

Noun

bell cow (plural bell cows)

  1. The lead cow in a herd.
    • [he] also keeps a number of cows, one of which has a bell hung round its neck, which keeps ringing with every motion of the cow. The other cows follow the “bell cow,” and thus their whereabouts in the forest are readily got at.1882, James Aitken, chapter 2, in From the Clyde to California, Greenock: William Johnston, pages 27–28
  2. (US, figuratively) A leader; an influencer.
    • When Carlos Hyde was selected in the second round of the 2014 NFL Draft, it was presumed he would eventually take over Frank Gore's role as lead back for the Niners. Now that Gore signed in Indianapolis, the door is wide open for Hyde to seize that opportunity. "He looks the part as far as a...2015 August 13, “Chris Simms: ‘Carlos Hyde can be a stud in the NFL’”, in FOX Sports

Questions about bell cows

What is bell cows the plural of?
Bell cows is the plural of bell cow.

Words near bell cows in the dictionary

  1. Bell Common
  2. bell cot
  3. bell cots
  4. Bell County
  5. bell cow
  6. bell cows
  7. bell crank
  8. bell cranks
  9. bell curve
  10. bell curve god
  11. bell curve gods

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bell cows (page history and authors); bell cow (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “bell cows.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bell_cows. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.