(noun) 1. a man, or sometimes a boy, who tends or herds beef cattle or works on a beef ranch;
COWMAN;
COWHAND 2.
Americanism, Colloquial any man or boy who wears the typical garb like that of a cowboy Sense 1 as in play or fashion 3. American slang a male person regarded as simple, rustic, idealistic, uneducated, crude, unsophisticated, wild, and/or reckless, also, a man who is a reckless car or truck driver 4. Americanism any male character in western pictures or novels who acts or dresses like a cowboys as a
gunslinger, sheriff, train robbers, etc. in the old American west 5. American slang something regarded as western in culture as a book or film as “I have fifteen war films and fifty cowboys in my video collection.”
(adj) 1. like, of, or pertaining to cowboys and/or American western culture as a cowboy hat, a cowboy gun, or a cowboy movie 2. American slang shoddy,
ad hoc or inferior in workmanship or quality as
cowboy coffee or cowboy wiring
(vi) to do the work of cowboys; tend or herd beef cattle
-cowboy up American slang be a man; act as a genuine male; face a difficult challenge or task at hand