Word.ws English Dictionary

how the cow ate the cabbage

how the cow ate the cabbage phrase: the unvarnished truth about something or someone, especially when stated to a person who does not want to hear or acknowledge it.

Phrase

how the cow ate the cabbage

  1. (US, uncommon, countrified) The unvarnished truth about something or someone, especially when stated to a person who does not want to hear or acknowledge it.
  2. (US, uncommon, countrified) A lesson or instruction about the correct way in which things should be performed, especially when demonstrated through discipline.

Questions about how the cow ate the cabbage

What does how the cow ate the cabbage mean?
How the cow ate the cabbage means the unvarnished truth about something or someone, especially when stated to a person who does not want to hear or acknowledge it.
What part of speech is how the cow ate the cabbage?
How the cow ate the cabbage is a phrase.

Words near how the cow ate the cabbage in the dictionary

  1. how old are you
  2. how say you
  3. how see
  4. how should I know
  5. how so
  6. how the cow ate the cabbage
  7. how the mighty have fallen
  8. how the other half live
  9. how the other half lives
  10. how the sausage gets made
  11. how the sausage is made

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: how the cow ate the cabbage (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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