In the 18th century, the Swedish government made coffee and its paraphernalia (including cups and dishes) illegal for its supposed ties to rebellious sentiment.
COWAN
Etymology 1
Noun
cowan (plural cowans or cowanis)
A worker in unmortared stone; a stonemason who has not served an apprenticeship.
(freemasonry) A person who attempts to pass himself off as a Freemason without having experienced the rituals or going through the degrees.
(slang) A sneak; an inquisitive or prying person.
(in attributive use) Uninitiated, outside, “profane”.
Etymology 2
Noun
cowan (plural cowans)
(Scottish, obsolete, rare) A fishing-boat.
Proper noun
Cowan
A Scottish surname; an anglicization of mac Eoghainn (“son of Ewen”)
An Irish surname; an anglicization of mac Eógain (“son of Owen”)
A Jewish surname a variant of Cohen.
A city in Tennessee; named after Dr. James Benjamin Cowan, a Civil War-era doctor whose family had lived in the area since the early 1800s.
A town in New South Wales. Apparently an anglicization of a Yuin-Kuric aus-yuk word meaning “big water”.
A town in Manitoba.
A census-designated place in Stanislaus County, California, United States.
Source: Wiktionary
Cow"an (kou"an), n. Etym: [Cf. OF. couillon a coward, a cullion.]
Definition: One who works as a mason without having served a regular apprenticeship. [Scot.]
Note: Among Freemasons, it is a cant term for pretender, interloper.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
Recent Word Finds
Word of the Day
3 July 2025
SENSE
(noun) the faculty through which the external world is apprehended; “in the dark he had to depend on touch and on his senses of smell and hearing”
Coffee Trivia
