Dictionary

cawer en · NOUN

Etymology

From caw + -er.

Meanings

1. One who caws, such as or like a bird.
   • As we plunge through the last bushes which separate us from the hawk, twenty cawers rise flurriedly from the ground; […] 1853, "Falconry" [from the New Monthly Magazine], in The Living Age, page 275
   • The Keep within side … a Co(l)lony of Jackdaws have been there many years—I dare say I have seen many a descendant of some old cawer who peeped through the Bars at Charles the first, when he was there in Confinement. 1817 April 17, John Keats, letter to J. H. Reynolds, number 22, quoted in 2012, Hyder Edward Rollins, The Letters of John Keats: Volume 1, 1814-1818: 1814-1821, Cambridge University Press, page 131
   • Chough, (Anglo-Sax. ceo, Fr. choucas and chouette;) from the root of Eng. to caw or to haw; as if the cawer or hawer. 1841, J. W. Gibbs, “Art. VI.—Origin of the Names of Beasts, Birds, and Insects”, in The American Journal of Science, page 32:
   • […] melodious choir of young cawers; for be it known that we birds, as well as […] 1826, George Wood (Captain, 82nd Regiment), The Rambles of Redbury Rook, page 2
   • A decoy owl mounted on a pole in connection with some good hooting or cawing surely will keep the guns hot in a place where crows ar abundant. This combination easily should win a Du Pont crow price. Sauter, the New York taxidermist, makes and sells the decoy owl; a little practice will make a good hooter or cawer. 1919 June, The Game Breeder and Sportsman, volume 15, number 3; page 84 of the compiled volumes 14-15

Forms