Word.ws English Dictionary

cowling

cowling noun: a young or little cow; calf. Also the present participle and gerund of cowl.

Noun (1)

cowling (plural cowlings)

  1. A young or little cow; calf.
    • She nuzzled between the legs—a bull calf. She continued to nuzzle and clean the little pea-green body that was blue with white patches about his cowling parts.2003, David Gilet, The Yellow Dot Plague and Other Tales
    Synonyms:
    cowlet

Noun (2)

cowling (plural cowlings)

  1. A removable protective covering for the engine of an aircraft, motorcycle, etc.

Proper noun capitalized: Cowling

Cowling (countable and uncountable, plural Cowlings)

  1. A village and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England, previously in Craven district (OS grid ref SD969429).
  2. A village in Burrill with Cowling parish, North Yorkshire, England, previously in Hambleton district (OS grid ref SE236876).
  3. A surname transferred from the given name.

Also used as

cowling is also the present participle and gerund of cowl.

Synonyms of cowling

Forms of cowling

Noun
pluralcowlings
Proper noun
pluralCowlings

Origin of cowling

From cow + -ling.

From cowl + -ing.

Variant of Colling, a personal name which denoted an early owner of the properties.

Questions about cowling

What does cowling mean?
Cowling means a young or little cow; calf.
What part of speech is cowling?
Cowling can be a noun or a proper noun.
What is the plural of cowling?
The plural of cowling is cowlings.

Words near cowling in the dictionary

  1. cowlicks
  2. cowlift
  3. cowlifts
  4. cowlike
  5. Cowlin
  6. cowling
  7. cowlings
  8. Cowlishaw
  9. Cowlishaws
  10. Cowlitz
  11. Cowlitz County

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cowling (page history and authors); Cowling (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: “cowling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cowling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.