cowboy Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a hired hand who tends cattle and performs other duties on horseback
    puncher; cowherd; cowpuncher; cowpoke; cattleman; cowman; cowhand.
  2. noun a performer who gives exhibitions of riding and roping and bulldogging
    rodeo rider.
  3. noun someone who is reckless or irresponsible (especially in driving vehicles)

WordNet


Cow"boy` noun
Definitions
  1. A cattle herder; a drover; specifically, one of an adventurous class of herders and drovers on the plains of the Western and Southwestern United States.
  2. One of the marauders who, in the Revolutionary War infested the neutral ground between the American and British lines, and committed depredations on the Americans.

Webster 1913