Talk:cowen

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Really? SemperBlotto 11:21, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Surely it's cowan, not cowen. But the definition given at cowan seems to differ from the one at cowen and is maybe an older meaning of the word.--Dmol 12:31, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

The OED [2ⁿᵈ ed., 1989] has (deprecated template usage) cowen, but only as an eighteenth-century spelling of (deprecated template usage) cowan (which sense I've just added to our entry); note that its entry is (AFAICT) unchanged from that of the NED [1ˢᵗ ed., 1893] except for the addition of one quotation. Rather than being some older sense, “someone who is not a witch”, if such usage exists, is probably a more recent (i.e., post–nineteenth-century) adoption of the Masonic term by Wiccan and/or Neopagan groups. As for “the commander of the genii (chief cowen)”, that usage, if its exists, is wholly unlike the other senses we have, and may be a corruption of the term by conflation with coven. — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 02:30, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Disputed senses RFV-failed. - -sche (discuss) 04:01, 11 April 2012 (UTC)