cow barn
- noun
- There were stories handed down about the jars of gold and silver coins buried out behind the cow barn where Dace had died; some said he shot himself out of pure frustration, being unable to find what his daddy before him had hidden too well.
Examples
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He passed the cow barn, the horse stall, and the ghostly rhubarb patch.
Fiction book (1997) -
"He climbed over the blue ledges down through the hemlock in our pasture and into the cow barn.
Fiction book (1999) -
It has no more architecture than a cow barn.
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On a dung heap in the cow barn, Holmes finds two thousand five hundred pounds.
Academic text (2000) -
There's this cow barn.
Fiction book (1993) -
"Okay, it seems there's this old guy whose cow barns extend a few feet into the railroad right-of-way.
Fiction book (1993) -
Harkers' cow barn loomed at the curve of the road; beyond it, the windmill marked the dooryard of the house.
Fiction book (1991) -
Beyond the main structure stood various outbuildings: a misplaced cow barn of experimental design, a duckless duck pond, and an observatory.
Fiction book (1992) -
Dairy farmer Dick Perkins pets one of his Holsteins and calls her by name as he walks through one of his cow barns on his Chaleston dairy farm on Friday, Nov. 2, 2012.
Blog text (24) -
The farmer built a new cow barn to provide shelter for his herd during the winter.
Synonyms
A large farm building for storing hay or keeping animals
A building where cows stay and rest
A building where cows are kept
A barn where cows stay for shelter and milking
A building, often a barn, where people keep cows
A building where cows are kept
How Large
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a barn where cows are housed' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'cow' (the animal) with 'barn' (a farm building). This simple noun–noun compound follows a common compositional pattern found across languages, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Cow barn is a simple compound of cow and barn, so picture a barn full of cows kept inside for 'shelter' and 'milking'. That's why it means 'a barn where cows are housed'.