Query: Cowgirl

[Fred Shapiro]

On Wed, 5 Jul 2000, Grant Barrett wrote:

> Another one about the US Airways article on ADS. Please reply to the original
> sender.
>
> I saw in a recent edition of US Airways an article on ADS.  They list
> the date of origin for the term "cowboy,"  but I was wondering what the
> date of origin is for the term "cowgirl."
> There are a lot of conflicting arguments.

The Oxford English Dictionary's first citation for "cowgirl" is dated
1884, but the following is an earlier occurrence, albeit in a European
context:

1874 Herman Schmid & Karl Stieler _The Bavarian Highlands and the
Salzkammergut_  From all the pastures the cow-girls descend, if they are
young and pretty.


Fred R. Shapiro                             Coeditor (with Jane Garry)
Associate Librarian for Public Services     TRIAL AND ERROR: AN OXFORD
  and Lecturer in Legal Research            ANTHOLOGY OF LEGAL STORIES
Yale Law School                             Oxford University Press, 1998
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               ISBN 0-19-509547-2