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Cow’s Tail

.

“Always behind, like a cow’s tail.” “Tanquam coda vituli.” (Petronius.)

The cow knows not the worth of her tail till she loses it, and is troubled with flies, which her tail brushed off.

“What we have we prize not to the worth

Whiles we enjoy it; but being lackʹd and lost,

Why, then we rack the value.”


 

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Covent Garden
Coventry
Coventry Mysteries
Cover
Covers were laid for
Covered Way
Covering the Face
Coverley
Covetous Man
Cow
Cow’s Tail
Cow-lick
Coward (anciently written culvard)
Cowper
Cowper Law
Coxcomb
Coxeyites
Coxswain
Coyne and Livery
Coystril
Cozen