Noun

(en noun)

An enclosure for cows close by the farm.

*{{quote-book, year=1864, author=John Hanning Speke, title=The Discovery of the Source of the Nile, chapter=, edition= citation

, passage=On entering the palace we were shown into a cowyard without a tree in it, or any shade; and no one was allowed to sell us food until a present of friendship was paid, after which the hongo would be discussed. }}

*{{quote-book, year=1898, author=Eden Phillpotts, title=Children of the Mist, chapter=, edition= citation

, passage=Behind a cowyard of shattered stone pavement and cracked mud stood the farm itself, and around it extended the fields belonging thereto. }}

*{{quote-book, year=1912, author=Walter W. Skeat, title=English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day, chapter=, edition= citation

, passage=There were no pigeons in the pigeon-house, and nothing but jack-daws; and so, after she had burned the beam, and the door-frame and the floor, she ran into the cowyard , through the small field, and fainted behind several pitchers of yeast. }}

Noun

(en noun)

A person who lacks courage.

* 1856 : (Gustave Flaubert), (Madame Bovary), Part II Chapter IV, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling

He tortured himself to find out how he could make his declaration to her, and always halting between the fear of displeasing her and the shame of being such a coward , he wept with discouragement and desire. Then he took energetic resolutions, wrote letters that he tore up, put it off to times that he again deferred.