Cowley

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A seventeenth-century English poet and essayist associated with the metaphysical school ; a suburban district on the southern side of the city of Oxford, England
2. An English metaphysical poet of the 1600s known for odes and essays ; a residential area within the Oxford city boundary in southern England
3. The name of a 1600s English writer of verse and prose ; a place name for a built-up neighbourhood located in Oxford, in the south of England

Etymology: Three English places called Cowley share a spelling but not a source. The Gloucestershire village combines Old English "cū", meaning cow, with "lēah", a woodland clearing or glade, so its name means roughly "cow clearing." The Derbyshire hamlet pairs "col", meaning coal, with the same "lēah," giving "coal clearing." The other places named Cowley are different again. Their first element is the Old English personal name Cufa, so these were named for a person, and the name means "Cufa's clearing." The shared ending, the modern form of "lēah", is what links all three.