Cotswold lion
A now-obsolete British nickname for a Cotswold sheep — specifically the large, long-woolled rams bred in the Cotswold Hills of England.
Definitions
A now-obsolete British nickname for a Cotswold sheep — specifically the large, long-woolled rams bred in the Cotswold Hills of England. The term is inherently comic, applying the regal title of 'lion' to a farm animal, and reflects the enormous cultural and economic importance of the Cotswold wool trade in medieval England, when Cotswold sheep were genuinely prized commodities. The ironic grandeur of the name captures how seriously wool was taken at the time, even as modern ears find the phrase charmingly absurd.
The landlord at the pub had an old print on the wall of a Cotswold lion, the shaggy ram that had made the region's fortune in the wool trade.
Comments
(UK, obsolete) A male Cotswold sheep.
Comments
Used in
Have a better definition?
Add your own interpretation of "Cotswold lion".
🇬🇧About British & Irish slang slang
UK and Irish slang — Cockney, Scouse, Geordie, Yorkshire, Glaswegian, Brummie, Welsh, West Country, plus Irish English. Centuries of regional dialects feeding into modern British and Irish street talk.
See all British & Irish slang slang on Slangora.
Tags
Other words near "Cotswold lion" (C)
Browse all slang words starting with C.
Related terms
People also read
Semantically related
- Essex lion65%
A humorous archaic British slang term for a calf, based on the joke that the county of Essex lacked impressive wildlife — so the most impressive beast found there was a farm calf. The term belongs to a tradition of regional mock-boastfulness. Entirely archaic and mainly of interest to students of historical English humour and slang.
- Essex lion59%
(archaic, slang) A calf .
- red lion57%
An old-fashioned North American term for a puma — also known as a mountain lion, cougar, or panther. The 'red lion' name references the tawny reddish-brown coat of these large cats, drawing a poetic comparison to the lion of Old World heraldry. While the term is mostly historical and rarely used today, it reflects the creative naming conventions early settlers used to describe unfamiliar American wildlife through familiar European references.
- sheepshagger55%
(British, slang, derogatory) countries]] or regions which have large populations of sheep.